Sabacc
by Sweetdeath04 and Thorney
Summary: Han and Leia have finally setteled down and now have a family. But Han finds it hard to break old habits and one night he loses his twin three year old kids in a game of sabacc. Now him and the gang have to go after them but that's easier said than done.
1. The Sins of Drink and Gambling

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!  
  
Sabacc  
  
The Sins of Drink and Gambling  
  
"Are you sure you want to raise the stakes, General Solo?" asked the rather sinister looking card dealer.  
  
"So far," he added, a slight menace in his voice, "you have lost everything to us apart from your ship, if you can call it a ship, I personally would call it a hunk of tin, and your family." He laughed and raised his eyebrows mockingly.  
  
Another sabacc player grinned broadly and drawled, "Nobody's ever heard of a mercenary settling down and having kids! You're history in the making! Even I thought you could at least have made a better choice when you picked a wife!"  
  
At this point in the conversation, Han was too drunk to understand anything that was going on- except one thing.  
  
He ceased hitting his head off the sabacc table and looked up. Nobody had ever got off with insulting his-  
  
SHIP!  
  
Leia was the only exception, and maybe Luke, but not some random people during a game of sabacc!  
  
"All right!" he said, words slightly slurred. He had had one too many Corellian Whiskey's. "I'm in!"  
  
"But you see that's the problem, Solo; you have nothing left to bet with! Unless you are going to forfeit the Millennium Falcon?"  
  
"Not on your life!" Han's brain was working too slowly, because of the alcohol, so he turned his luck to the latter of the two options he had been given.  
  
"I bet my twin kids!"  
  
"Their names?" asked the dealer.  
  
"Jaina and Jacen."  
  
Another better said something that made everyone's heads turn in interest.  
  
"I always thought that there were three Solo kids?" It was more a question than a statement.  
  
Han replied by brandishing a finger at the speaker and saying, "Don't push your luck, Pal!"  
  
"Okay!" cried the dealer. "Let's get this started before Solo here, is out for the count.  
  
"You never know," said another person to him, Han didn't know his name, but he did know that he was quite possibly the best sabacc player in the universe and he had won the previous eight hands that had been played. "You might win everything you have lost tonight back! I mean, the chances of me winning nine hands in a row are one hundred and thirty-one thousand and seventy-two to one against me!"  
  
"Have you been talking to See-Threepio?" Han asked blearily.  
  
"Why, yes! I won him! Remember?"  
  
"He won't in the morning!" cackled the dealer, gleefully.  
  
Han smiled sarcastically then looked at his cards.  
  
The smile dropped, but he brought it up quickly again for a bluff.  
  
The only other competitor in this hand looked at the smiling Solo and briefly hoped that this relatively good draw of cards would be enough.  
  
On the outside, Han Solo was smiling, but on the inside all he could think was...  
  
'Crap'.  
  
A.N. This is our first Star Wars fanfic and it is pretty crazy. Personally we can't really imagine Han betting his beloved kids, but hey! It's the holidays! We'll do whatever we want! It's our fan fiction, after all!  
  
Thorney & Sweetdeath04 


	2. The Curses of a Guilty Conscience

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!  
  
The Curses of a Guilty Conscience  
  
"Ohhhhhhhh!" groaned Han. He didn't know where he was or how he had got there. All he knew was that someone was poking him very hard in the back.  
  
"Go away!" he said. His head was about to kill him....he remembered going out to gamble.....how much had he lost? Had Leia killed him this time? Was he in Hell for his Gambling?  
  
"Grrharrr?" said a voice, and then something kicked him, with a very hairy foot. It took a while for Han to realize what the sound meant. Soon instead of incomprehensible growl, like it would have sounded to most people, he heard, "Cub, what are you doing on the ground?"  
  
"Chewie?"  
  
He felt himself being hoisted into the air and he landed softly on the wookie's shoulder, "Come on, Cub let's get you home."  
  
Chewbacca was talking to Han softly so he didn't add to his friend's pounding headache, telling him of the previous nights events. Han didn't need to know, he was remembering. How had he let himself get so carried away? He'd lost everything........all the money he and Leia had been saving........all the furniture.......in fact all their things and everything they owned save the house and the Falcon! Han had been smart enough not to bet that. The only person dumb enough to gamble property was Lando Calrissian.  
  
".........and then they came at three this morning and they took everything, Cub, including the Twins!"  
  
"What?!" Han had forgotten about that.  
  
"They kidnapped Jacen and Jaina!"  
  
"They weren't kidnapped Chewie..." said Han his voice growing hoarse with guilt, "It's more complicated than that."  
  
.............  
  
He found Leia crying in the corner of the completely empty living room. She told him what had happened that morning and eventually Han, full of guilt at seeing Leia in such a state, confessed to his crimes.  
  
"YOU GAMBLED AWAY OUR CHILDREN???!!! IS THAT EVEN LEGAL???!!!" Leia was (Understandably) furious and distraught.  
  
She back away for Han, who she was now terribly afraid of, "How could you? I thought you'd changed! But No! You were and still are 'ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY!!' Common Pirate! "  
  
She half stormed and half ran from the room, crying.  
  
Han sat down in the centre of the floor, all most wishing death upon himself. It was at that point that Luke came in, returning from the Jedi academy he was constructing on Yavin 4. He had been working all night, traveling for two days and wasn't in the mood for what he saw upon his arriving home.  
  
"What the heck happen here?"  
  
When only a groan emerged from Han, Luke decided that more desperate measures were needed. A quick poke in his brother-in-law's mind couldn't hurt that much, could it?  
  
"GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!" Han yelled, placing his hands over his ears, "DON'T USE THAT HOAKY POAKY RELIGION ON ME, KID!" But Luke had seen enough.  
  
"Oh," said Luke walking over to stand beside his best friend, he sighed, "I knew this would happen."  
  
"And don't go all mystical Jedi on me either!" he cried in exasperation.  
  
Luke sighed again. It now looked as if his dreams of just going to bed and doing nothing for hours on end, would in fact, remain a dream.  
  
"How much did you loose?"  
  
"You're not that dumb Luke! Look around you!"  
  
"You lost something more than all this," said Luke wisely. "I can tell."  
  
Han covered his eyes with his hands and lay back on the cold stone floor. "Just the twins," he moaned, regret evident in his voice.  
  
Luke struggled to keep calm.  
  
'I am a Jedi. I have confronted Vader. Jedi do not get angry at a small thing like your brother-in-law gambling away your niece and nephew. Breathe', he thought to himself.  
  
"By the way," Han said, peeping out at Luke between his fingers, "I also lost C-3P0 and R2D2, but droids can be replaced!" he concluded hopefully.  
  
"WHA-! No, that's not how a Jedi should cope with this sort of situation!" With that he left the room, trying not to look at Han as he exited.  
  
'Okay, maybe we can talk to these guys. Persuade them to give the twins and the droids back! Just have to send a couple of messages to a couple of friends', the thoughts passed through his head.  
  
"Maybe," he said, aloud this time, "Maybe, they will co-operate?"  
  
A.N. In a rush! Got to go! Hope you enjoyed!  
  
Sweetdeath04 & Thorney 


	3. Troublesome Twins

Disclaimer: We are broke and own nothing. We own our teddy bears but not the Ewok. It's real depressing.   
  
Troublesome Twins  
  
Jaina and Jacen Solo had been kidnapped many times in the past three years. Of course, that didn't stop it from becoming any less frightening. They didn't know what was worse, being in the hands of someone they had never met, or being stuck in a secret cargo compartment with only C-3PO for company.  
  
R2-D2 had been shut down and shoved in a crate so C-3PO, having no one to argue with, resorted to talking to the twins.   
  
At first they didn't respond, but then after agreeing telepathically, they were going to cause the droid as much trouble as possible……without looking too suspicious. Over the year that they had been living with Han and Leia, the twins had perfected the innocent toddler look. It would keep them entertained for a little while, at least.  
  
"Threepio!" whined Jaina, expertly, "Tell us the story rebellion!"   
  
"Well I'll tell it the best I can," said C-3PO, doubtfully.  
  
The twins grinned broadly, "In Ewok!" they chorused.  
  
"But you won't understand it!" protested Threepio.  
  
"EWOK! EWOK!" they chanted again.  
  
C-3PO sighed, "Alright," then in Twi'lek he muttered, "I just don't understand human behaviour!"  
  
The twins could guess what he was saying. He was so predictable at times, but they kept it to themselves. Despite the fact they didn't know where they were going or what was going to happen to them, they were going to have fun while they could.   
  
A.N This is the shortest chapter that we have ever written! O well!  
  
Thorney & Sweetdeath04 


	4. A Woman's Wrath

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!  
  
A Woman's Wrath  
  
"Okay Lando. Come to Coruscant as fast as you can, Han's in a bad way! And remember, keep it quiet!"  
  
Luke ended the transmission to Lando Calrissian. It was all set. Han, Leia, Chewie, Lando and Luke were going after the twins in the Millennium Falcon.  
  
He was on his way to inform Han that Lando was in, when he passed Han and Leia's quarters. There was crying coming from inside, clearly audible through the door.  
  
Luke's sister had blocked her mind off from him. Luke could understand, this must be very frustrating for her and she probably just wanted to be alone for a little while. Even so, he knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a reply.  
  
Leia was sitting on the bed and was facing away from him.  
  
Luke had no idea how to comfort her, but he was going to give it a damn good try!  
  
"It's all right Leia," he said in a comforting voice. "It'll be okay, we're going to get them back, we're going after them!"  
  
To his dismay, Leia only cried harder. But at this point, Luke realised that she was concentrating too hard on trying to stop crying and the walls around her mind were slipping. He managed to get a glimpse at what she was thinking.  
  
"Anakin?" he asked anxiously. Finally, Leia turned around. Her usually pale skin was flushed and her face was tear stained. Her eyes were brighter than normal.  
  
"I just managed to contact Winter," it was obvious she didn't want to tell him, but she had to. Luke urged her to continue.  
  
"She says Anakin's fine, but the transmission was cut off half way through, so, I don't know," she finished feebly.  
  
She looked at her knees and said in a quiet voice that was almost a whisper, "Maybe my beloved husband gambled him away too," she said 'beloved' in the most sarcastic voice she could manage.  
  
Luke didn't know what to say, so he sat down beside his sister and put an arm around her, once again trying to comfort her. Going for a different tactic, he said, "Secrecy is our main ally here. The last thing we need is for the public to know that one of the New Republic's generals is gambling away his children in games of cards. If that happens, what's left of the Empire might gain more support in the senate."  
  
At this, Leia froze. In one swift movement, she rose of the bed and turned to face him.  
  
"How can you be thinking of the New Republic at a time like this?!?!" she screamed at him.  
  
Luke lifted his hands in defence. "Hey! Don't take it out on me! It's not my fault that Han got too trashed to win a game of sabacc!"  
  
"It's not my fault! It's not my fault!" she mimicked. "Now you're beginning to sound like that monster that it supposed to be my loving husband! I should have known you'd side with him!"  
  
Luke didn't understand why everyone was yelling at him. Sure, Leia was distressed at Han's stupidity, but that didn't mean she had to use him as a verbal punching bag! After all, it really wasn't his fault.  
  
He realised too late that Leia had heard every thought that had just passed through his mind.  
  
Luke had tried to teach Leia to control her anger, but it wasn't really working.  
  
"Get out!" she whispered venomously. Luke didn't move.  
  
"GET OUT!!!" she screamed at him, and Luke only managed to dive out of the door and close it before he heard something shatter as it hit the spot where he had been about one second previously.  
  
He then lent against the door listening to Leia tear the room apart. For the first few minutes the door shuddered as ornamental vases and miniature statues hit it. Then the bangs and crashes got louder. Luke guessed that the desk had just been overturned and pulled apart. Leia had most defiantly inherited her father's anger.  
  
After about half an hour, the crashes ceased. Luke had just begun to consider going back in to talk with her in an attempt to calm her down when he heard her yell;  
  
"Go away Luke! I know you're there!"  
  
Luke sighed and rolled his eyes. He walked off up the corridor to find Han.  
  
Then, blocking off his mind, he thought, 'When Ben said "Your sister remains safely anonymous", why did I say, "Leia! Leia's my sister!" Why couldn't I have just lived with it!'  
  
He found Han where he had left him.  
  
"Don't go near Leia," he advised. "She's in a bad mood."  
  
A.N. This was only supposed to be the start of a different chapter but it got too long. That made Thorney REALLY angry because she wanted to get on with introducing another character to this story! Oh well! Hope you enjoyed!  
  
Cheers!  
  
Sweetdeath04 & Thorney 


	5. The Uninvited Visitor

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!  
  
The Uninvited Visitor  
  
When Leia had calmed down enough to have a civilized conversation, even with her husband, she joined Han, Luke and Chewie in the empty sitting room.  
  
Lando had just walked through the front door.  
  
"Wow!" he grinned with his usual charming smile, "Some one had a very successful night last night!"  
  
"Successful! Successful! Have you even looked around Lando? Are you blind or something?" Leia screamed at him.  
  
"I'm glad I'm not, Leia," said Lando, turning all his attention to her, "For if I was, I wouldn't have the pleasure of looking at you again."  
  
Leia blushed and suddenly found the floor a very interesting thing. Flattery, it got her every time.  
  
"Oi! Calrissian, that's my wife you're talking to!" Han glared at his mate, but he didn't hold it for long. It turned into a lopsided grin, "So are you going to help me out of this mess or not? Goodness knows you owe me a few favors!"  
  
"Everybody owes you at least one favor, Pirate!" Lando chuckled, and then he turned to Luke, "So, what's the plan?"  
  
"Well," said Luke, "We're going to the bar where Han lost everything, to quiz the dealer. We'll see if we can find out who this mystery sabacc player is and where we can find him."  
  
"And then we are going to track down the kidnapper of the twins and see if we can't bargain with him," added Han.  
  
"Don't you mean the winner of the Twins?" asked Lando.  
  
"That's the last thing I need Buddy," Han groaned.  
  
"Well did you really expect to win, when you bet something so important?"  
  
"I usually win," Han protested, "I am the guy who won a planet and, might I add," he started grinning again, "the Millennium Falcon!"  
  
"That hurt, that really hurt," said Lando in mock offense.  
  
"Enough of this! We have to get a move on," said Luke, "Before they get too far ahead."  
  
"Okay, we'll take the Falcon," Han said, walking towards the door.  
  
"What? Thinking about gambling that off as well? Didn't think it was possible, seeing as you value that scrap of tin more than you value your children's lives!" Leia muttered bitterly.  
  
Han stopped beside Luke, looking slightly confused, "Did you hear some one talking Luke? I could have sworn I just did."  
  
Luke rolled his eyes and shoved both of them out the door.  
  
............  
  
They left the house, checking to make sure no one saw them. They were leaving for the near by docking bay, where Han had Left the Millennium Falcon.  
  
Luke had made sure, he was positive, there was no one about the house..........  
  
That's when he heard some one yell behind him:  
  
"Lukie boy! You really didn't think you could leave without me did you?"  
  
How could Luke have missed him? General Wedge Antilles was leaning against a pillar outside the house, arms folded, grinning like a maniac.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Luke quickly changed tactic, "It's not that I'm unhappy to see you or anything but this isn't really a good time."  
  
"What, you mean with Han gambling away the twins and all?"  
  
"How do you know about that?"  
  
"A little birdie told me, then I shot him."  
  
Luke scowled. He would have to get used to Wedge's cruel sense of humor again.  
  
"Anyway, it's all over the net," Wedge continued.  
  
"What?!" yelled Luke.  
  
"Just kidding and you know, I've been a good boy, I haven't told any one, not even Janson."  
  
"Tatooine has frozen over and Hoth has melted! Wedge Antilles kept a secret!"  
  
"What? Tatooine froze over? When? I didn't think that was possible! And Hoth melted? That's gonna be a lot of water!"  
  
Luke was trying to think of another excuse to stop Wedge from coming with them.  
  
"Shouldn't you be commanding the Rogue Squadron?" he asked.  
  
"Well, yeah," replied Wedge. "But they won't notice if I'm gone a couple of weeks!"  
  
Luke looked at him doubtfully.  
  
"It's getting a bit boring now, what with the Empire having no control. Not as many TIE Fighters and Imperial Walkers to fight, no Death Stars to blow up, you know!"  
  
Luke gave up. There was nothing he could do. "What do I have to do to make you keep this quiet?" he asked nervously, as Wedge could think of some pretty outrageous things.  
  
Wedge grinned and said gleefully, "Take me with you! Good ol' fashioned rescue mission! Should be fun!"  
  
Luke groaned. "Come on then, we're wasting enough time here as it is."  
  
"Lead the way, Lukie boy!"  
  
"How many times have I told you not to call me that?"  
  
"Hundreds, but I never listen to you anyway!"  
  
A.N. Thorney is obsessed with Wedge! You have no idea how much fun it is, just getting her to shut up by saying "Wedge!" She is star struck!  
  
Thorney & Sweetdeath04 


	6. The Scene of the Crime

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!

The Scene of the Crime

"What in the Hells of Corellia is _he_ doing here?!?!"

"Well, it's good to see you too!" retorted Wedge, folding his arms across his chest and looking accusingly at Han.

"Er...Well... of course it's good to see you Wedge, but... um, well... you see.... We were trying to keep this little... um, holiday, um... privet," mumbled Han, not looking wedge straight in the eye.

Wedge cocked his head to one side. "You're going on a holiday when the twins need rescuing 'cause you, rather foolishly, gambled them away last night? My, Leia must be _thrilled_!"

Han was about to ask Wedge how he knew about his little mis-adventure in the casino last night, when Leia entered the room.

"I heard someone say my name," she stated. Then she spotted Wedge.

"What in the Hells of Alderaan is _he_ doing here?!?!"

"So many planets, so many hells, so little time." Wedge sighed and shook his head. Turning to Luke, he said, "It's gonna be like this all day, ain't it?"

"So why don't you go and travel them all," said Han pushing Wedge towards the exiting ramp of the Falcon, "Don't forget to send us a post card."

"Han you silly nerf," said Wedge, a grin quirking at his face, "I'm coming with you!"

The look on Han's face was priceless, and even more so when Wedge plopped himself down in the pilot seat of the Falcon.

"Oh no you don't!" cried Han, finally recovering. "This is my ship, not some petty, broken down X-Wing! If you're coming with us then you abide by my rules and that means, I'M DRIVING!"

"Abide by your rules?" Leia muttered in the backround. "If I had abided by your rules twelve years ago, I'd be dead!"

Han threw Wedge off the seat yelling something that sounded like, "AND IF YOU DON'T ABIDE BY MY RULES, THEN I MIGHT BE FORCED TO THROW YOU OUT THE AIR-LOCK!!!"

"Aw Han ol' buddy! You'd never do that to me!" Never the less, he resisted his attempts to stay on the seat.

"Just try me!" said Han, sitting down on the seat himself.

Wedge grinned. "Okay then-"

"Wedge!" interrupted Luke. "Leave it!"

"So where to first then?" asked Lando, who had entered the room without anyone noticing.

"The scene of the crime, I expect," replied Leia, strapping herself into one of the seats.

"The Lucky Money casino it is then!" said Han, starting up the engines of the Falcon.

"_Lucky Money?"_

..........

The dealer was sitting in his office counting his winnings from the previous night. There was a sucker born every minute, and he knew it. He momentarily wondered how many of these suckers had come to his casino last night.

As he was about to put the money in the safe, he heard a blaster shot and the door banged open.

The dealer now found himself in a prickly situation. A few moments ago he had been smugly counting his money that he had conned people out of, but now...

He was faced with two blasters, one Wookiee bowcaster and one green and one purple lightsaber. His only escape route was through the window, but as he glanced at it he saw a ship blocking it, the guns pointed straight at him. Lando waved at the dealer from the cockpit of the Falcon.

He turned back to face the crowd, lead by the one and only Han Solo. He recognized the only woman in the group who was holding the purple lightsaber as Princess/Senator Leia Organa-Skywalker-Solo. (Geesh! What a mouthful!") Han's wife. The other lightsaber was wielded by Luke Skywalker, Leia's brother and Han's brother-in-law, newly elected Head of the New Jedi Council.

The wookiee was the mighty Chewbacca, he supposed, as he was Han's long time partner. But he had no idea who the rebel pilot was!

"Okay," said Han, "We can do this my way.....or the hard way!" The wookie roared in agreement.

By this time the bowcaster, lightsaber and the blaster were all under the terrified dealer's chin.

"Leia," warned Luke, not taking his eyes off the dealer.

"Don't worry Luke," said Leia tauntingly, "I'll hurt him a little, perhaps, but not _kill_ him."

The dealer knew perfectly well that a little pain with a lightsaber, turned out to be a _lot_ of pain!

"What do you want? I'll do anything! Just keep the wookiee away from me!" _And the lightsabers_ he thought to himself.

Amazingly, the green lightsaber disappeared.

"_Luke!!!_" yelled Leia, exasperatedly. "What are you _doing_?"

"He's terrified of it," said Luke, gesturing to his lightsaber which was now dangling at his side. "And you should do the same!"

Leia squirmed. "No! Not until he tells me what I want to know!"

"Leia! He won't be able to tell you if he can't get the words out because he's so scared!"

Leia squirmed again, but the purple blade disappeared... only to be replaced by another blaster.

Luke sighed and said, "There's just no getting through to you, is there? And Chewie, back off a bit, he's scared of you too."

Chewie's eyes went wide, round and blue. He put on his best innocent expression, but took several paces back.

"_These are my kids we're talking about!!!"_ screamed Leia at her brother.

"Oh! So that's why you're here!" said the dealer in a would-be-calm voice.

"Way to go mastermind!" said Han, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Now tell us who took them and where they're headed!"

One blaster was now trained on his head and another on his heart.

The dealer stuttered, "Some bounty hunter called Dengar!"

"WHERE'S HE HEADED!!!" yelled Han.

"He... He wasn't playing for himself! He was playing for some guy called Bobby Fett!"

"That's great! Now tell us WHERE HE IS HEADED!!!"

The dealer cowered away. "They said something about going to the Smugglers Moon!"

"Nar Snaddaa?"

Everyone turned to look at Wedge who had spoken.

"How would you know that?" asked Han amazed.

"Tried being a smuggler once," said Wedge off handedly, "Wasn't very good at it!"

"Han put a hand on his shoulder, "Takes a certain talent Wedge, one that you will never have!"

Everyone turned back to the dealer, "Thanks for your help!"

They lowered their blasters and turned to leave.

"Wait! You've missed them!" Why did he open his big mouth? Within a second the blasters were back on him.

"What do you mean?"

"They said they were leaving this morning, you'll never make it in time."

"C'mon," said Han, "We'd better get moving, everyone back to the Falcon. C'mon Chewie!"

But the wookiee had taken a few steps towards the trembling gambler. Making his eyes wide, round and innocent again, he dived at the dealer.

"Chewie! No!"

But it was too late.

Chewie had gathered the dealer up in a huge wookiee-bear hug and planted a sloppy kiss on his brow.

"EWWWWW!!!! Get off me!"

"Chewie! Come on!" Han yelled at his huge wookiee friend.

Chewie walked away, knowing that his mission was accomplished.

Han sighed. "Let's go. You've scared him enough already!"

**A.N.**_ We have FINALLY worked out what age Han is! We are very happy!_

_Sorry we haven't updated in ages, but when Thorney came back from her holidays, Sweetdeath04 left. _

_Please R & R!_

_Thorney's still crazy about Wedge!_

**_Thorney & Sweetdeath04 _ **


	7. The Virtues of Han Solo

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!

**A.N.**_A Few little spoilers from 'The Courtship of Princess Leia'. Nothing much though. _

The Virtues of Han Solo

"Now in Rodian! Rodian!" yelled the twins.

C-3PO groaned. So far he had told the story in Ewok, Twi'lek, Corellian and Wookiee. Still it was nice to be appreciated. Several times he had thought of refusing but the twins could be very demanding.

"How about," said Threepio, "I sing you a song instead?"

The twin looked nervously at each other, their plan had back fired, they had gone too far.

Before they could say a word, horns and strings could be heard from inside C-3PO. And he burst into song:

"_He had his own planet,_

_Though it was kind of wild_

_Wookiees love him_

_Women love him_

_He's got a winning smile!_

_Though he may seem cool and cocky_

_He's more sensitive than he seems_

_**Han Solo,**_

_**What a ma-"**_

"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Jaina, "Is that our Daddy you're singing about?"

"Well, yes," said Threepio, a little put off at being interrupted, "It's the altered version of 'The Virtues of King Han Solo'."

"_King_!"

If Threepio could have, he would have rolled his eyes.

"A mistake was made a few years ago. There was a rumor that your father was King of Corellia, but that was proved to be false. I wrote the song for your mother!"

"Yeah, I'm sure she _loved_ it!" The sarcasm from the voices of the twins could only have been produced by the children of Han Solo and Leia Organa-Solo.

"Well, since you know the origin of the song, I'll sing you the whole thing from beginning to end!" Threepio was delighted to finally sing the whole song, so delighted that he completely missed the sarcasm.

"And I can tell you that there are fifteen verses!"

The twins stifled a groan.

Some people said that you can never tell if a politician is lying or telling the truth. If that was so, Jaina Solo would turn out as good a politician as her mother. You couldn't tell that she was lying when she said;

"We'd be... delighted."

..........

The Falcon was speeding towards the main docking bay in the area.

Luke and Leia were sitting side by side, not speaking.

Suddenly Leia gasped and shuddered.

"What is it!" asked Luke, alarmed for his sister.

"The twins! Something's happening! They're really... disturbed."

"Are they all right?" Luke questioned her quickly.

"Oh, they're not hurt or anything," she said, relieved. "But something's disturbed them, annoying them."

"Don't worry," Luke soothed her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "We'll get them back; they won't have even left the hanger! You'll see, we won't loose them Leia, I promise!"

Leia nodded and slumped back in her seat.

If only Leia knew what it was that had been disturbing the twins.

**A.N.**_ This was a rather short chapter again. We were originally going to write the whole 'Virtues of King Han Solo' but we ain't great poets. But we hereby make a promise that someday we will write the whole thing, all fifteen verses! _

_Hope you enjoyed Threepios singing!_

_R & R!_

_Sweetdeath04 & Thorney _


	8. Babysitting

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!

Babysitting

Threepio was about to start the ninth verse of the song, oblivious to the twins, who were occasionally cringing.

"_**Solo!**_

_**What a man, Solo!**_

_**He's every Princess's drea-"**_

Once again, he was interrupted by Jaina.

"If Daddy's a King, does that mean I'm a Princess just like my Mommy?"

Threepio sighed. "He's not a King! It was a mistake! Your great great grandfather was hanged for impersonating the King!"

"Hanged?"

"Never mind. Besides Jaina, the only planet you could have been Princess of was blown up by Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin."

"Wilhuff?" cried the twins, delighted that the name was so odd. Then their faces fell.

"Blown up?" asked Jacen, his chin started trembling.

"I've told you about the destruction of Alderaan before," said Threepio. "Your mother lost everything and everyone she held dear to her in that explosion."

Jaina looked at him curiously. "Even Daddy?"

"Well, at that point she didn't really hold him dear to her."

"What? They didn't like each other?"

"Well there were a few problems with garbage," admitted Threepio. "And a lot of name calling, and your father couldn't learn to take orders."

"Dad never learned to take orders," agreed Jacen, nodding his head.

"Anyway!" said Threepio enthusiastically, "On with the song!"

At that point there was a loud bang as the door of the cargo hold slid open.

Dengar walked in. He was a tall, broad man with bandages covering part of his head. Ironically enough, he was about to save the twins from another hour of song. He shuffled over and pressed the button on C-3P0's back to switch him off.

"Hey!" cried Jaina, "We were talking to him!" She said this, even though she knew full well that Dengar had saved her ears from an indescribable torture.

He lifted her up by the scruff of the neck. "Look here you little twirp! We're about to take off so you better not be disturbin' us, or I might be forced to chuck you out the air lock!"

Jaina grinned. "You're a lot like Daddy!" When Han was in a bad mood he had often threatened to throw the twins, Chewie and on a rare occasion, Leia out the air lock of the Falcon.

Dengar, insulted at being compared to Solo, dropped Jaina on the floor.

She started crying.

Jacen sensing his sisters pain, also burst into tears.

Dengar swore violently, and these words were quickly picked up by the crying twins.

He tried everything from patting them on the head to clamping his hand over their mouths (they bit his fingers). He even tried singing, though after an hour of listening to Threepio's own composition, this only made them cry harder.

It was then Dengar heard a cold, cruel laugh behind him. He spun round to face the man who was cloaked in shadows.

"I never thought I'd see the day when the great Dengar would be babysitting." The mysterious man laughed again.

"You try it then!" said Dengar exasperatedly. "It's not as easy as it looks you know!"

The man sighed and shook his head. "Get outta the way."

He drew a blaster and set it for 'stun'. Then he pulled the trigger twice. One shot hit Jaina, the other, Jacen. They collapsed limply, unconscious on the floor.

"You can't go easy on kids Dengar. They're twice as dangerous as adults."

Dengar sighed and stalked out of the cargo hold. He was distinctly heard saying, "No bounty is worth this!"

**A.N.**_ Once again this was meant to be the start of a chapter, but it grew too long. So now we're gonna have two chapters!_

_Please, please read and review!_

**_Thorney & Sweetdeath04 _ **


	9. A Tad too Late

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!

A Tad Too Late

"We're coming up on the space port now," Han yelled to the others, "according to the scanners, there's only one ship there..........I think we've got them.

Leia let out a sigh of relief, as did Luke. Lando and Wedge grinned at each other and Chewie roared something.

"I know! I know! I see it, hold on everyone!" yelled Han. They all felt the Falcon accelerate.

"What's wrong?" cried Luke.

"They're taking off," Han yelled in reply, "It's a huge freelance cargo ship!"

Leia ran to stand beside Han and saw the enormous craft life from the ground and speed away.

Leia swore as violently as Dengar.

"I hope she doesn't use language like that in front of the twins," said Luke to Han.

"Nope," said Han as they sped after the ship, "It's usually me!"

Luke ignored him, to intent on catching the bounty hunter before he went into hyper-space.

"Can't we go any faster?" asked Wedge.

"Well yeah," said Han, pushing a button on the dash bored, "If we wanted to over take them. But I don't see the point in that."

"Well can't we track them or something?"

"We know where they're going, we just need-"

Something hit the ship, with a force that knocked Lando to the ground. Leia stumbled backwards and tripped over Lando. Luke, with his amazing Jedi reflexes, grabbed onto something, which just happened to be Wedge, they too came tumbling down on top of Lando and Leia.

Chewie heard the thumps and said something that sounded suspiciously like, "What are you doing down there?"

Han turned around. "CALRISSIAN!!! Get off my wife! And you Wedge! Luke, your own sister!"

Wedge and Luke jumped up and brushed themselves off, both blushing slightly. Lando and Leia hadn't moved.

"Calrissian..." said Han in a warning tone.

Lando sighed. "Alright, alright! Maybe some other time Leia." Both picked themselves off the ground and Lando gave Leia a wink and his own unique winning smile. Leia went scarlet, but she was grinning to herself.

Luke quickly tried to change the subject. "What hit us anyway?"

"That was a laser blast, farmboy!"

Luke was about to retaliate, when they were hit again.

Lando was once again thrown to the floor and he looked up at Leia hopefully. But Leia had grabbed the back of Chewie's chair and Luke had grabbed the back of Han's. Wedge had been flung up against the wall.

"Thanks for grabbing onto something else that wasn't another person Luke!" said Wedge sarcastically.

"Someone take the guns!" yelled Han.

Luke and Leia dived for the ladder, Leia going down and Luke going up.

"Pirates!" Han yelled again. "Coming up behind us in old Corellian freighters!"

"Might be old friends!" said Lando with a grin.

"How many are there?" yelled Wedge up at Luke.

"Seven!"

"Six!" corrected Leia, as there was an explosion in the distance.

"Fine, six!" The annoyance was clear in Luke's voice.

"Now, now Lukie! Don't get annoyed just because your little sister got the first shot!"

From the belly gun they heard Leia yell back, "Five minutes does _not_ make me his little sister!"

"Ten!" Enjoyment was evident in Luke's voice as he blasted a freighter out of the sky.

"There! Now you're even! Now there's no need for anymore fighting!" yelled Lando, falsely cheerful.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw another shot come from the gun Leia was manning. One of the small ships spun off into space and exploded. Lando knew he should be happy, but he couldn't help but groan.

"As if!" came Leia's cheerful voice.

"Hang on! They're backing off! That's not fair! I won't be able to win!" cried Luke, disappointed.

"Are Jedi supposed to be this blood thirsty?"

"Put a sock in it, Wedge!"

"Okay. Just as long as it's not one of Han's!"

Laughter was heard from everyone apart from Han.

Leia's cry broke through the laughter, "They're coming straight for us!"

Han glanced at the chart, "No, they're going to pass us," as Han spoke, they flew past and Han swore in Huttese, "They're preparing to go into light speed!"

Luke and Leia climbed down from the guns just in time to see the remaining freighters and the cargo ship leap forward into light speed.

There was a stunned silence for a minute or so. Then Chewie roared.

"I know pal," said Han sadly, as he stared after the ship, which most likely held his children, "They got away."

"They're not completely lost, we know where they're going," said Luke, putting a hand on Han's shoulder, trying to comfort his friend.

Han swivelled round in his chair. It was probably the first time that Luke had seen Han look so helpless.

"They could change the flight path, they could do anything, they could..." he lowered his voice, "they could kill them!"

Han had realized this before, but the words coming from his own mouth made the situation sound a lot more dire.

"They won't," said Luke hopefully.

"Come on Chewie, Lando," said Han standing up, "let's check the Falcon for injuries."

"Bria Tharen was his first love," said Lando, trying to make people smile again, "But the Falcon was definitely his second!"

"And Leia was his true!" said Wedge.

"I didn't know you had a sensitive side!" said Lando.

"I do try to hide it."

Lando grinned and followed Han and Chewie.

Wedge turned to Luke, "How do you know they won't change the flight path, anyway."

"You don't know very much about Jedi, do you Wedge?" Luke asked, giving him a side ways glance.

"Let me guess," said Wedge, waving his fingers in front of Luke's face and putting on a mystical voice, "You felt it in the Force."

"That's right Wedge!" said Luke in the air of explaining one plus one equals two. "I have a feeling that they want us to follow them, and if I'm right, which I'm almost certain I am, why would they change the flight path?"

Wedge was silent for a minute and then said, almost sulkily, "All right, all right, I get the point."

"Well done! Now, if you don't mind, Master Antilles, I'm going to find my darling little sister."

As he left the room he heard Leia in his head say, "_I'm not your little sister!"_

**A.N. **_So what did you think? We really like this chapter!_

_Okay, Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Lando and Wedge may be as thick brick walls, but has anyone noticed a little thing we put in a few chapters ago?_

_Please Review!_

**_Sweetdeath04 & Thorney _ **


	10. UnIdentical Twins

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!

Un-identical Twins

"Okay Chewie, put those wires together and we'll see what's happening here."

As the wires touched, Han let out a curse, "this is not good," he growled. There was a long list of repairs he had to do. Most of them could be done were they were, but one they would have to land for.

He told Lando, Wedge and Chewie to start, and went off to find Luke and Leia.

While Han had been trying to repair the Falcon, Leia had been doing a good job of damaging it.

Luke had found her and they were practicing her Jedi training, in an attempt to keep her mind off the twins.

Han was watching from around the corner. He had only seen her practice with Luke twice before.

She had the purple lightsaber that Luke had made for her. Han knew that she was about half way through the process of making one for herself.

Her eyes were following a training remote that was darting above her head.

"Your still trusting your eyes too much, Leia," said Luke. He walked over and grabbed the helmet that Obi-Wan had placed on his head all those years ago. He looked at it fondly, walked up behind Leia, and placed it on her head.

Leia let out a little gasp of surprise. "Luke! The blast shield's down! I can't see!"

"You're supposed to see beyond the helmet Leia! Use the Force! Act on instinct!"

"What if my instinct includes kicking you in the shins!"

"Leia..."

"Okay, okay."

"Besides, if I can do it you can!"

Suddenly, the remote shot at Leia, and she blocked it easily.

"See! You're getting on to it already! The first time I tried, I got shot!"

The remote shot at Leia three more times and Leia sent them ricocheting off at different angles, then she brought the lightsaber down in front of her, and sliced the remote in half and the pieces promptly exploded.

"_Leia!_ Those things cost money!"

She pulled the helmet off and grinned innocently at her brother.

"I acted on instinct!"

"Okay! If you're so good... Put the helmet on."

Leia obeyed.

Suddenly, Luke drew his lightsaber with phenomenal speed, slashing at his sister. She blocked easily.

Han was still watching, and he didn't like Leia's chances of winning.

Luke came in again with an over head attack, and Leia blocked but this time it was more hasty and less accurate. She was beginning to panic. She followed the block with a lunge.

Luke span out of the way and Leia almost fell, but made up for it with a forward roll. But before she could properly recover from that, Luke was on her again. Within moments she found his lightsaber over hers, both in an X lock.

Luke's entire weight was bearing down on her and she couldn't hold it. With a small gasp, she fell back, and within a second she felt the heat of Luke's lightsaber at her throat.

After a few seconds, the familiar hum of the lightsaber disappeared and her brother removed the blast shield.

"You're going to have to work on that." He grinned.

Her face was chalky white. "Maybe a little warning next time." Her voice was higher than she would have liked and she struggled to lower the pitch.

"You are the Jedi Master here, and that was my first time fighting you!" She struggled for more excuses for her failure. "And you're the Jedi who destroyed the Emperor-"

"I didn't!" Luke interrupted. "Dad did."

"But- Dad? Oh..." she trailed off and they fell into an uneasy silence.

Han understood why. Leia had never really come to accept Darth Vader as her father, even though they had called their third child Anakin.

Even though she had learnt the truth, she still considered herself the daughter of Bail Organa. After all, he had raised her and _he _hadn't tortured her aboard the Death Star.

She sometimes grew angry at Luke for his acceptance of Vader and even though she knew it was true, she sometimes doubted the story Luke had brought back from the Death Star. For Luke to forgive his so readily after all he had done and all the evil he had spread throughout the galaxy was something she didn't pretend to understand.

Luke broke the silence. "Let's try practicing your core Force abilities."

Luke motioned for her to sit down on the seat beside him. "I'm going to block my mind and I want you to try and force entry."

After several attempts, Han heard Luke gasp, and he realised that Leia must have done it.

Luke rubbed his head, "Well done," then he looked up warily at her, "what did you see?"

"I saw your Uncle Owen yelling at you, something about flying and Beggar's Canyon," said Leia thoughtfully, "What did you do?"

Luke thought for a moment then said, "Oh! I remember!" then he blushed, "Well, I was banned from going to Beggar's Canyon in my T16 with Biggs."

"Why?"

Luke stared at his feet and Leia saw him blush a deeper shade of red. Then he muttered so only Leia and Han could hear, "Reckless Flying."

Leia burst out laughing and Han had to stuff his fist into his mouth to stop himself.

"That sounds exactly like you," gasped Leia, her laughter finally subsiding, "Who'd you kill?"

Luke looked up at her as innocently as possible, "No one if you must know!"

"You wrecked the T16, didn't you?"

"You know I'm not such a bad pilot!"

"Then what did you do?"

"Well, it's wasn't necessarily my fault," said Luke defensively, "Biggs challenged me to a race and you know me!"

"What happened?" said Leia starting to smile again.

"Well I..... if it is possible in a T16.....a back flip."

Leia laughed again and Han drew blood from his fist because he was biting it so hard. He didn't want his presence to be known.

"Alright, that's enough!" said Luke, who had begun to laugh himself, "I know you can get into my mind now, so let's try something else."

Leia grimaced, "You mean lifting things don't you?"

"If you don't practise you'll never get it! All my other students can do it, you're no different."

"By the way, who's looking after the academy while you're here?"

"Kyle Katarn, I trust him to look after things for me......I think?"

"Great," said Leia, "you can't even trust your own students!"

"No, I just don't trust Kyle!"

Leia rubbed her face with her hands. "Okay, so what do you want me to do?"

Luke looked over to a cupboard and a door flung open. A cup drifted out and it landed gently on the table. Luke stared at Leia's expression. She had tried lifting things before, and she had only been able to get them to move a little or not at all.

"Concentrate," he really wished that she could do it. I was very disheartening for her and him when she couldn't.

After a few minutes, the cup shook and rose a few centimetres off the table. Luke was just about to let his hopes rise, when it came down on the table with a small thump.

Luke sighed. In an attempt to help, he raised the cup high off the table he told Leia, "Try and keep it there."

He felt her holding it and then said, "I'm gonna let go now, okay?"

She nodded.

The cup stayed put for a few seconds, shook then fell.

CRASH!!!

Porcelain went flying and both Luke and Leia groaned simultaneously.

Luke, using the Force, cleaned up the remains of the cup and let it drop in the bin. He felt Leia's jealously seeping through.

"It stayed for a few seconds," said Luke encouragingly.

"Who are you kidding Luke? I can't do it!"

"You _are_ getting a little better."

"Luke I've never been able to do it and I never will!" She stood up and kicked the chair.

Luke was starting to getting alarmed. Leia had a temper that he didn't like getting in the way of.

"Leia-"

"No Luke! I can't! I hate it!"

"_Leia!_ Remember, fear, aggression, **_anger_**! That all leads to the dark side!"

Her mind drifted back to her tantrum back on Coruscant. "Yeah," she said sheepishly, "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it," said Luke shaking his head. "You just need to be a little more mindful when it comes to your temper!"

"It's just so hard Luke."

"I know," he put his hands on her shoulders and continued, "You just have got to keep trying."

Han sighed. Now might be the best time to tell Leia of the delay, just after she had had a lesson on anger.

Han turned the corner into the room as Luke enfolded his sister in a hug.

He heard Luke's voice at the back of his mind. "She knew you were here the whole time, I just told her not to say anything."

Han sighed inwardly and thought, 'Cheers kid."

**A.N.** _Wow. That was long! _**Sweetdeath04 is an only child so I (Thorney) had to handle most of the brother and sister moments. **

_OI! I (Sweetdeath04) did a lot too! I'm the romance specialist!_

**And I'm just the crazy one!**

_Now you're getting it!_

_**Thorney and Sweetdeath04**_


	11. The Pirate, the Princess and a Hell of a...

Disclaimer: We don't own Star Wars or anything related to it, OK? Don't sue.

**A.N.**_ Thanks goes to all our reviewers! You are all wonderful!_

The Pirate, the Princess and a Hell of a Lot of Oil 

Leia turned around, "So you finally decided to come in then?"

Han ignored the question, "I have bad news and some bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

"You know, I think we'll go for the bad news," said Luke sarcastically.

"We've stained quite a bit of damage, though most of it we can fix where we are. However... we do have to fix one thing while landed."

"If you say it's the hyperdrive, I'm going to scream until my lungs explode!" Leia said, through gritted teeth.

Luke poked her in the ribs, hard.

"Ow!" cried Leia. Then said, rather sullenly, "Bully."

This time, it was Luke who ignored Leia.

"What is it Han?" he asked.

"It's not the hyperdrive," he said, giving Leia a withering look, "It's the deflector shield!"

"Oh but those aren't important at all!" Leia said, rolling her eyes.

"What's not important?"

Chewie, Wedge and Lando had entered the room, the latter being the one who spoke. The trio were covered in a black gloopy substance that looked suspiciously like oil.

Chewie gave a mournful groan and gestured to his fur, which was a sticky, black, mess.

"What happened to you!?!?" said Han. "You're dripping oil all over the lounge!"

"That isn't the only place that's full of oil!" said Lando, between being annoyed and amusement. He gestured a thumb at Wedge. "_Genius_ here hit one of the oil pipes," he paused, then continued lightly, "Oh yeah_, with a hammer!!!"_

"Well! I didn't know which one you wanted me to hit! They all look the same!"

Han stared at him, then said exasperatedly, "We didn't want you to hit a pipe!"

"It was an experiment."

At that point Chewie growled something to the rest of the room.

Everyone, apart from Wedge started smirking, despite the dire circumstances.

"What!" cried Wedge, glancing from face to face. "Remember, I can't speak Wookiee! Don't leave me out of the conversation!"

"Chewie says," said Lando, translating, "That at least you didn't hit it with your head. That could have caused a lot more damage than any hammer!"

"Yeah! To my head!"

"Nothing in there to damage mate!" said Han, laughing.

Leia laughed too, then she realised she wasn't talking to Han, and stopped abruptly.

She sat down and sighed, "That's another thing we have to fix!"

Wedge grinned again. "Nope! I patched it up with some paper and glue! It'll hold!"

Everyone stared at Wedge, whose grin was starting to fade. None of them noticed the oil that had started seeping from under the door.

Wedge's grin had fully faded and he quickly stared at his feet.

"I'm truly sorry Han. It was stupid. I shouldn't have..." he trailed off.

Walking over, he slapped Han on the back, leaving a big oily hand print behind.

"I'm really sorry Leia," he said, holding out a hand for her to shake.

"That's okay. I'm sure we can forgive you." She backed away slightly from the sticky mess called 'Wedge's hand'.

"Anyway, back to the point," said Han, running a hand through his hair, "do we land or not? It'll take one and a half days at the most to fix. But we can go on without it."

"I think we should land," said Luke, "Just to be on the safe side."

"You're always on the safe side!" Leia muttered, concerned for her children's well being.

'_Reckless Flying?'_ she heard Luke ask in her head, then heard him speaking to the rest of the room.

"You never know what you're going to run into near the smugglers moon! Pirates, Smugglers...."

"Obviously!" said Lando

Luke paused, "Maybe even some......scoundrel's!"

Han jumped a foot in the air and Leia yelled "What!?!?"

She had never shared this piece of information with her brother and she never had intended to!

"Care to share Luke?" said Lando.

Luke grinned, mischievously, the farm boy side of his personality showing through. He started to speak in a mystical, storytelling voice that he used on the Twins, "Let me tell you the beautiful love story of the Pirate and the Princess," he gestured at Han and Leia.

"We don't want to hear any love story!" said Han, starting to panic.

"Well tough you're going to hear it anyway!" said Wedge, "Please continue, Lukie!"

Luke scowled, but did as he was told.

"Now, I'm sure you two, knew about the rumours that were going around Echo Base," he grinned at Wedge. Both of them knew that it was the rogue squadron that had started all the rumours in the first place.

"Though, most of the rumours disappeared after the....Nerfherder incident in the Hoth sick bay, and of course, were replaced by knew rumours!"

Luke's grin turned into a glare.

"What did I do?" Wedge grinned innocently.

Luke yelled, "She's my sister!" at the same time as Leia yelled, "He's my brother!"

"Yeah, well......Janson and I didn't know that at the time, and it certainly didn't look like that at the time!"

Han was growing impatient, "Get to the point, Kid! How did you know?"

Luke's voice was annoyingly casual, "Do you remember that time you were put in carbonite, Han? And we had to go all over the galaxy to rescue you?"

"Well, I'm not likely to forget, am I?"

"Well," continued Luke, "Leia was very upset and her mind was more fragile than I realised......"

"AND????"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"You poked around in my mind!?" said Leia, disbelievingly.

Luke shrank backwards as Leia's hand went to her lightsaber. He knew he did deserve her wrath this time.

"It was and accident! It wasn't my fault! I was new to this stuff and I was looking for a way to cheer you up......but I went a little too deep and came across the wrong thing!"

"That is _very_ private property!"

"I was only trying to help, besides it was years ago!"

"Promise me that you will never mention this again!"

"Alright," but as he turned away from Leia, Luke gave Wedge and Lando a wink that said, 'I'll tell you later!'

Wedge whispered, "Wait till Janson and Hobbie hear this!"

Han spoke up loudly, "I'll take that as a 'we're going to land' then, shall I?"

Leia nodded reluctantly.

"Okay then, I'll find a suitable planet."

He strode toward the door and opened it. There was a pause as Han stood just outside the doorway, in the now flooded, with oil, hallway.

"ANTILLES!!!!!!"

Wedge winced.

"Now would be a good time WEDGE!!!" yelled Leia.

"Yeah, right, thanks, see ya!" He sprinted out a side door.

Luke and Leia burst out laughing.

"How did he ever become a General!?!?" she grinned at Luke. She could never stay angry at him for long.

Luke could hardly stand for laughing, "Well, you were the one who promoted him!"

**A.N.** _We are in a CAR trying to type and get this chapter done before Thorney leaves Sweetdeath home so we'll just go now!_

_**Thorney & Sweedeath04**_


	12. What happened to Wedge

Disclaimer: We don't own Star Wars or anything related to it, OK? Don't sue.

What happened to Wedge

"So then Han asks Leia what she's afraid of, and Leia says, 'afraid?', but it's kind of obvious that she's really freaked out! Anyway, Han says to Leia, 'You're trembling,' and Leia insists that she's not-"

"I can't really imagine Leia trembling, especially at our old softie, Han!" said Lando, half to himself.

"Yeah," Luke continued, "but she is, then-"

"Hey guys, what you doing?"

Han had entered the room to find Luke, Lando and Wedge huddled in a corner, apparently discussing something of some importance, their cleaning apparatus abandoned.

The trio jumped away from each other, grabbing their cleaning materials.

"Nothing Han! Nothing at all!" said Lando a little to quickly, trying to cover for himself and his friends.

"Yeah, whatever." Han had a good idea what they were talking about, but still felt a little hurt about being left out of the conversation, even if was partly about him.

He walked past them to go through the door on the opposite side of the lounge, smacking into Wedge's shoulder as he passed, causing Wedge to stumble back a bit.

"Ow!" Then Han could have sworn he heard Wedge mutter, "I thought Jedi were supposed to know when _certain people_ were coming!"

His brother-in-law muttered back, "The Force doesn't come with a receipt!"

When Han reached the door he said, "See ya guys."

"See you," then with three voices as one, "_scoundrel_!"

Han spun around, intending to yell at his so-called friends until his voice went hoarse, and perhaps punch his brother-in-law.

His mouth opened, but not to yell. His jaw dropped.

The three of them had disappeared into thin air, leaving just the cleaning materials, falling to the floor.

"I really gotta' learn how to do that, maybe some day I'll even be able to chase them."

.........

Hours later, when the Falcon was free of oil, but still stinking and leaving everyone feeling very dizzy, five of the six people on the rescue mission met in the lounge.

"Where's Wedge?" said Leia, almost immediately.

Everyone looked at Han, who was trying to look innocent, by staring at his fingernails.

"Han!" everyone yelled simultaneously.

The temptation to do the 'innocent wookiee look' that Chewie had used on the dealer, overcame him.

'That really doesn't suit you, Cub!' roared Chewie.

"Han! What have you done with _my Wedge_?!" Leia said sternly.

"YOUR WEDGE!!!" The cry came from Han, Luke and Lando.

"Yes! My Wedge!" But Luke could tell without using the Force that she was just doing it to rile up Han.

"Aw man!" said Lando glumly, "I thought I really had something going with you!"

Leia ignored him, but still went slightly pink. She stared into Han's eyes for a moment, then said, "That was mean Han! That was really mean!"

"Am I missing something here?" Lando asked and Chewie roared.

A moment later, Leia continued. "You didn't even leave him an air changer?!?!"

With that she ran out of the room. Han glared at Luke.

"I swear, I didn't teach her how to read your mind! It wasn't me!" Luke insisted.

Han stormed out after his wife and found her just outside the door ripping up the floor, or, you could call it, the door of the cargo hold.

"At least it doesn't smell down here," Wedge had been trying to stay sane by talking to himself. He sat up and took a deep breath of air as the door was ripped open.

"Wedge! Oh, my dear Wedge! You're alright!" Leia leapt forward, helped him out of the cargo hold, and then gave him a hug and didn't let go.

Wedge was taken a back, "Ok," he said slowly returning the hug, "Dear? Either this is a dream or some parallel universe."

Finally Leia let go of Wedge and then she rounded on Han, "You stupid bantha brained nerf!" she screamed, "You could have suffocated him down there!"

"And we all know what a terrible loss that would be to the universe!" yelled Han straight back at her.

"But.....you....AHH!" Leia finally gave up, "C'mon Wedge!" she grabbed Wedge's hand and started to pull him away.

Wedge had time to say, "Han, this really isn't my fault!" before he was dragged off by the enraged Princess.

Han watched them go, jealousy seeping through every ounce of his body.

"Little question, why did you lock him in there anyway?" Luke came up so quietly behind him, he made Han jump.

"I caught him trying to fix the pipe with nails and _another_ hammer! He was about to hit the pipe again when I knocked him out with the hammer." He looked at Luke exasperatedly.

"He was only doing what he thought right!" Luke said in Wedge's defence.

"Does 'doing what's right' include running off with my wife?!?!"

"You know she's only doing it to make you angry and," a grinned touched the corner of his mouth, "jealous."

"Get outta' my brain." said Han, glumly.

"That was half-hearted! I demand a bit more enthusiasm!"

"All these demands you make now. I wonder what you were like as a toddler."

Luke grinned and put a hand on Han's shoulder. "It was Lando yesterday, Wedge today and probably Chewie tomorrow. Don't worry. She'll forgive you... eventually."

"Yeah, eventually. I think this is her way of telling me I'm a long way off earning her forgiveness."

"Well you better keep an eye on her when we land tomorrow, or she might choose some random guy out of a cantina!" said Luke, almost laughing.

"It's ironic, isn't it?" said Han thoughtfully, "I was once a random guy you and Kenobi chose to pilot you to Alderaan..." he trailed off. "Or what was left of it."

A respectful silence that seemed to last for an eternity, fell between them, until Luke broke it.

"Well, I'm starving! Why don't you round up the others and we'll decide who's going to make dinner."

"Alright."

"Then you can chase after Leia and Wedge, and I know that's what you've been wanting to do since I started talking to you!"

"What did I say about poking around inside my brain?!?!"

"I see you've been listening to what I said about enthusiasm! Well done!"

The gave each other a final grin, and parted company.

**A.N. **_Greeting! We are back! I'm sure you missed us and tears of happiness are welling in your eyes!_

_We are as vain as Dorian Gray!_

**Thorney: AND PROUD OF IT!!!**

_Sweetdeath04 looks at Thorney, and blinks._

**Thorney: Well, I'm proud of it! (sniffs)**

_Anyway, we got a day off school 'cause it's Speech Day and we're such rubbish pupils we didn't win anything! YEAH!!!_

_**Thorney & Sweetdeath04**_


	13. Talented Wookiee

Disclaimer: We don't own Star Wars or anything related to it, OK? Don't sue.

Talented Wookiee

It didn't take long for Han and Luke to track down everybody, including Leia and Wedge.

They had once again shoved everyone in the lounge and Luke stood in front of them.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving! So, who's gonna cook?"

Everyone stared at each other for about a minute in complete silence. Finally, Lando spoke up, "Fine! I'll cook if no-one else is willing!"

"**_NO!!!_**"

"I've heard about this!" Wedge said thoughtfully, "Lando Calrissian's horrible cooking. Luke told me."

"Yeah, it's broken records, because it's so disgusting!" Luke grinned, "And I may be hungry but I'm not hungry enough to eat melted plastic and fertilizer with a pond scum over it. We don't need another smell strong enough to knock everyone out! And Wedge has been unconscious for one day!"

"Argh!"

"What did Chewie say Han?" asked Wedge.

"Thank you Chewie!" said Luke.

"He said he'd do the cooking," he replied to Wedge.

"Chewie," said Leia struggling not to laugh, "_Don't_ make Giju stew!"

Lando stood up and left the room muttering something about having, 'wonderful complementary friends'.

..........

Most people retreated to their cabin or played Holo Chess while Chewie was at work.

Well actually, Luke and Leia played Holo Chess and everyone RAN to their cabins to get out of their way.

"So that's what you're planning Leia!"

"Hey, Luke! You said no powers!"

"They're my rules! I can break them!"

The game continued in this way for about one standard hour, Luke breaking his own rules and Leia breaking Luke's rules as well.

Finally both, grudgingly, decided upon a draw and they left the holo pieces to themselves chatting about anything that came to mind.

As they drew nearer the small make-shift kitchen, Leia sniffed the air.

"Hey, something smells good!"

"Yeah! You want to go find out what Chewie's making?"

"Yeah, okay."

As they came closer to the door they heard a burst of...

"Singing?" asked Leia. She looked at her brother. "Am I going crazy, or do you hear what I hear?"

"I think I hear what you hear, sis."

They crept closer and closer to the door and peeked around the frame.

A very disturbing sight met their eyes.

Chewie was doing some form of Wookiee Dance and singing a very cheerful and very un-Chewie-ish song. But that wasn't all. He was wearing a chef's hat and a flowery apron while he tended the cooking units.

Leia stood, dumbstruck, a look of horror across her face. Luke somehow concealed his amusement and spluttered, "Can you make out what he's singing?"

Leia strained her ears. "Something about daisies and daffodils." The look of horror turned to a look of disgust. Sensing Luke's confusion she said, "Flowers from a different planet."

She turned to him, and saw he had a similar look on his face.

Suddenly they both burst into laughter.

When Chewie appeared in the hallway, they stopped as suddenly as they had started.

The wookiee growled at them, and they both recognised the words as 'Don't you know never to disturb a master and an artist at his work?'

The twins straightened up and fought to control their emotions.

"Yeah, sorry Chewie... we'll just go now..."

They turned and hurried off down the corridor. As soon as they were out of earshot they burst into laughter once again.

Through it all, Leia managed to say, "That was the scariest thing I've ever seen! And I've seen Jabba up close!"

"Yeah, well, I've seen Jabba's rancor up close!" He could feel the competition beckoning. No matter how good a Jedi he would become, the urge to banter with his _little _sister, would always be his greatest downfall.

"We've all seen rancors up close!" said Leia.

"Yeah well I've seen Jabba up close too! Not as close as you, but still up close!"

"Okay," said Leia leaning towards Luke, "but I've seen _Xizor _up close."

Even Luke flinched. Their previous experiences with Prince Xizor had not been pleasant.

"Okay! Fine! You win!" cried Luke.

Leia grinned in victory and whispered, "Yesss!"

Luke rolled his eyes.

"Hang on a second," Leia said thoughtfully, "What was Han doing with an apron like that on the Falcon? It looked too small to be Chewie's and it's certainly not mine!"

"Maybe there's something he's not telling you," Luke said mysteriously.

"That man will always be a mystery to me."

They remained silent for a moment until Luke said, "Oh and by the way, flirting with Wedge? Nice touch!"

She knew what she was about to say would rattle him a little.

"Thank-you, little brother! I modelled myself on you with Teneniel on Dathomir. Such a pity for you that she fell in love with Isolder."

"That was low, little sister. You want to go and finish that holo-chess game?"

"Oh! A challenge! I accept! And by the way..."

Luke knew what she was going to say, but was determined to beat her to it. He almost did, but they ended up saying almost the same thing, at the same time.

"I'm not your little sister!"

"I'm not your little brother!"

With that, they strode towards the lounge.

**A.N. **_We are really getting annoyed now! Ever since chapter six, the next chapter is going to be the 'salt scene', but the chapters just keep getting longer and longer and we half to cut them down. But we promise (we think) that the next chapter **will** be the 'Salt Scene'!_

_We had to put the 'breaking rules' thing in 'cause EVERY TIME Thorney comes over to Sweetdeath04's house, she breaks something. This time she dropped the computer keyboard and Sweetdeath04 had to confiscate her Technology project before Thorney wrecked it too!_

_**Sweetdeath04 & Thorney**_


	14. Crying over Spilt Salt

Disclaimer: We do not own Star wars or any of the characters, names and relations. This is far too official for us so let's just say, "Don't sue us! We have nothing to give you except our teddy bears, which might just be Ewoks in disguise, but there you go!" Na! Just kidding! We own nothing!

**A.N.** _A little spoiler from Shadows of the Empire in this chapter. Now for the eighth time since we started this fic, we give you..._

**Crying over Spilt Salt **

Luke and Leia were still bent over the holo board when they heard Chewie growl, 'Dinner is served!'

"Great! We're coming!" Leia yelled, her voice shaking slightly. She was losing badly and she knew it, but more to the point, Luke knew it.

"Match postponed!" she shot a glare at her brother. "You're not going to win that easily you know!"

"Looks like I already have." he said smugly.

"Not yet. Not if I have anything to do about it."

When they entered the small 'kitchen' Leia whispered to Chewbacca, "You haven't got any poison that I could slip into Luke's food, do you?"

The wookiee growled with laughter.

Soon enough everyone was gathered around the small table, which was laden with the food Chewie had prepared.

Even Lando, who wasn't talking to Chewie for obvious reasons, had to admit, it was pretty damn good.

By deliberate coincidence, by Luke's design, Leia and Han were sitting directly opposite each other, forcing them to look at one another. Luke had only been able to make Leia agree by allowing Lando to sit on one side of her and Wedge on the other.

Wedge had blushed at this suggestion but was obviously pleased with the amount of attention he was receiving from the princess.

Lando, knew exactly what was going on but he was happy for any excuse to help Han's envy grow.

"So," Luke managed to start a forced conversation after several minutes of silence, "What's the timetable like for tomorrow, when we land?"

"Lando and Chewie will go out and get parts for the Falcon. I'll fix her up a bit, we'll probably have to spend the night but then we'll be on our way."

"Where are we going?" Lando asked curiously.

"Commenor."

"Sounds good."

"Then we go after this Bobby Fe... Fe... Fett?"

"I thought it was Bobby Fett, not Bobby Fe-Fe-Fett."

"Use your brain Wedge, or what's left of it. Fett! Does anyone except me recognize the name Fett?"

"Isn't that the guy we chased half-way across the galaxy to get you back, Han?"

"Yes!" cried Han, thankful that someone understood, though by the looks on everybody else faces, they had worked it out about the same time he had.

A sudden sternness came over Wedge's face. "Is that the guy Dixie died for?"

Dix had been a good friend and had died for nothing. That particular rescue attempt on Han had failed.

"Well, sort of. That was Boba Fett. This is Bobby Fett."

"Well it can't be Boba Fett," said Luke. "Han knocked him into the Pit of the Sarlacc. He died!"

"Hey!" Han went defensive. "I was blind at the time!"

"Well, Luke's right, it can't be Boba Fett. Did he have a son?" asked Leia.

"I doubt he was faithful to any one woman, so probably. He may have even had two or three. Could be some kid who found out his dad was Boba Fett and took on his last name to sound impressive," said Lando.

"Great, if he's anything like his father... I don't want to know how the twins are now..." Leia looked glumly down at her plate.

"Let's not jump to conclusions now!" said Han, trying to brighten the spirits of the people in the room. "Take Antilles, for example. There are loads of people called Antilles, that Bail Antilles from Alderaan and that guy who piloted the Tantive 4, Captain Antilles. But they're not related to you, are they Wedge?"

Wedge stared at Han, obviously annoyed, "Makes me feel great knowing all of them are dead." He said grumpily, "The family of Antilles is cursed."

"Yeah," said Han trying really hard not to laugh, "They must be, if they're having kids like you."

Leia glared at Han, then placed a Hand around Wedge's shoulders, "Don't worry Wedge, we'll look out for you. And besides, like Han said, they weren't even related to you."

Wedge smiled meekly, and muttered so quietly it was almost inaudible, "Thanks."

"Well Han," Luke said uncertainly, "I've never heard of anyone else called 'Fett'."

"It's possible!" a touch of annoyance was in Han's voice.

Luke was about to respond when Leia cut in, "It doesn't matter who this guy is! Who cares if he's related to Boba Fett or not! Point is he has the twins and we are going after him!"

There was an awkward silence as Leia finished ranting. And the silence lasted.

Suddenly Han said, "Luke, can you ask Leia to pass the salt."

Luke rolled his eyes then said halfheartedly, "Leia, could you please pass the salt."

Leia thought for a moment, and then said sweetly to Lando, "Lando, can you please tell Han to take a look around and see that the salt is actually closer to him, so it would be more logical for him to stop acting so lazy and get it himself."

Lando took a deep breath. "Han... What she said!"

Han looked at Lando in mock confusion. "I'm sorry, who said?"

Leia's mouth dropped open and she looked scandalized.

"Lando! Tell that... that pile of _nerf-dung _to take back that comment immediately!"

Lando was clearly enjoying the excuse to insult Han.

"Listen you pile of nerf-dung! Take that back immediately!"

Han rose to his feet and on the opposite side of the table Leia did the same.

"Luke, you tell her High-and-Mightiness to shut up with the name calling and pass me the salt!"

Luke blanched. Han hadn't called Leia that in years.

"Um," Luke said feebly, "Leia-"

"WORD FOR WORD!" Han yelled.

"Um, okay." Then Luke said very quietly and very quickly, "Your High-and-Mightiness, could you plea-"

"Word. For. Word."

Luke found himself feeling slightly intimidated by his brother-in-law and sincerely wishing he hadn't left his lightsaber in his room.

"Shut up and pass the salt."

Leia heard him think, _'Please don't shoot the messenger, please don't shoot the messenger!'_

Leia thought back, _'Don't worry, just for you, I'll use my lightsaber!'_

She saw his gaze flicker to the lightsaber on her belt then he thought, _'Meep!'_

Leia was thinking about how to reply to Han.

"Lando," she hesitated, "Tell that THING that looks worse than Jabba the Hutt in a bikini-"

She was interrupted by the howls of laughter from Wedge, Lando and Chewie. Leia grinned and even gave a small bow, "Thank You! Thank You, I'll be here all week," then she turned back to Han.

"Looks worse than Jabba in a bikini........Where was I again? Oh yeah. That I'm not going to do anything for.....IT."

Han didn't give Lando a chance to insult him again, "Well if I'm an IT then I would be very worried about the circumstances of the twins' and Anakin's birth!"

Leia scowled, "Who says they're your kids?"

Lando grinned smugly at this and leaned back in his chair, only two legs touching the ground, "You know I always wondered why they didn't have more of my looks."

Wedge suddenly burst out, "Can we change the subject please. It's putting me off my dinner."

"Luke, tell that," there was a pause as he tried to find a good insult, "Yassum! That-"

Leia interrupted, "You bantha brained-"

"You know, I've heard Bantha are really smart." said Lando.

"Gundark!"

"Stuck up...."

"Womp rat!"

"Half witted...."

"You have the same taste in clothes as Emperor Palpatine!" everyone's heads were going from one to the other, Lando lost his balance and toppled backwards on tot the floor.

"Scruffy looking....."

"I am not scruffy!!!!"

"NERF HEARDED!!!!!"

"WELL YOU......YOU...."

"STUPID SMUGGLER, YOU'RE ALL THE SAME!!!"

"Hey!" said Lando from the floor.

"WELL YOU'RE A STUCK UP PRINCESS WITH ABOUT AS MUCH PERSONALITY AS A WET MOP!!!"

"I'M BEGINNING TO WISH THAT I _HAD _MARRIED ISOLDER INSTEAD OF YOU!!! HELL, EVEN XIZOR WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER!"

"I WOULD HAVE RATHER MARRIED THREEPIO THAN HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU ALL THE TIME!!"

"YOU'RE WORSE THAN A BALD WOMPA!!!"

"WELL YOU-"

"_**STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"**_

The room went quiet as a new voice entered the argument.

"_Luke?" _

A collective gasp was heard throughout the 'kitchen'.

"_You're worse than the twins! I wish Bobby Fett had kidnapped you instead 'cause then I wouldn't have to put up with this childish arguing! And if the twins decided to rescue you I wouldn't offer to help 'cause I'd remember the time you went crazy on the Millennium Falcon!"_

Leia had time to think, _'**We** went crazy' _before Luke sprang to his and continued yelling.

"_And if you continue this pathetic attempt to get on each others nerves I will go into my room and get my lightsaber and cut every single one of you," _he gestured his finger around the table, _"in half, and I don't give a damn if my blade turns blood red while I'm doing it! So shut up, sit down and we are going to have a nice **peaceful, civilized dinner!"**_

Luke thumped himself down on his chair and began to eat very deliberately still taking deep calming breaths.

Han and Leia sat down slowly and looked around. Everyone was staring at Luke, openmouthed. They had never seen him get that mad before. And everybody... _nearly _everybody, knew not to try him.

But then...

"Wedge, can you please ask Leia to pass the salt?"

"**_AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"_**

Luke stood up so quickly that his chair toppled over and he crushed one of the glasses with the Force in his rage. He strode to the door, paused, and turned around.

Suddenly, the salt that was sitting in front of Han and floated into Luke's outstretched hand.

"Just to make sure!" he spluttered, before storming off in the direction of his room.

There was a stunned silence for several minutes after Luke's departure, until Leia said, "And he talks to _me _about anger!"

Wedge had sunk so low in his chair that only the top of his head was visible above the table.

"You don't really think he's gone to get his lightsaber, do you?"

**A.N. **_Oh my gosh! We finished the Salt Scene!!! (Lots of screaming!)_

_The reason we didn't put the Antilleseseses... yeah, you get the idea. Thorney would just like to point out that even if there is an Antilles family curse, she would put up with it for Wedge!_

_We've been planning this chapter since before we started the fic so now we're kinna sad that we've finished it. But now we've got a new baby chapter! It's called the Bar Scene! Unfortunately it's not up next, but look out for it!_

_We've decided on a deadline to finish Sabacc because we've got lodes of stuff to do. It's New Year so if we haven't finished by then you have permission to yell at us in reviews!_

_**Thorney & Sweetdeath04** _


	15. A Friend In Need

Disclaimer: We don't own Star Wars or anything related to it, OK? Don't sue.

**A Friend in Need...**

Luke was fuming. He sat on his bunk, his head in his hands, thinking about what he had just done.

A rush of thoughts flew through his head including, 'What have I done?' and 'Why am I still holding the salt?'.

He heard the door creak slowly open behind him.

"Go away Wedge."

"Hey! How'd you do that? You didn't even look around! How'd you know it was me?" Wedge said, surprised.

Luke sighed in exasperation. "One, I'm a Jedi and I can see without using my eyes, and two, no one else would be stupid enough to come near me after what I just did, except maybe Chewie, and that's only because he could rip my arms out if I did anything to upset him!"

He heard Wedge laugh quietly.

"Well, I'm not able to rip your arm out Luke, but you can most definitely talk to me."

Luke sat straight up, almost scared.

"What?" He barely managed to keep the quaver out of his voice.

"Come on Luke! We've been friends since that day you came to Yavin 4, but you never have really confided in me before, which," he held up his hands in defence, "I can completely understand."

He was suddenly beside Luke, a look of understanding and sympathy on his face, that didn't really suit him.

"Come on, tell Uncle Wedge all about it!"

"Uncle!?!?" Luke inhaled so quickly that he made himself choke. "Uncle?" he repeated through a fit of coughing. "You're only eight years older than me!"

"I'm still old enough to be you're uncle," Wedge said wisely. "Besides, you would normally talk to Han or Leia in this sort of situation, right?

Luke nodded.

"Yeah," Wedge continued. "And I'm guessing you don't really want to talk to them right now. And as for Chewie and Lando, well... they're busy!"

Wedge was obviously trying to think of excuses so that Luke couldn't back down, and Luke really didn't want another argument, so he thought it best to play along.

"All right, Uncle Wedge." Luke said the name with a sense of distaste in his mouth.

"Okay," Wedge said quickly. "So tell me, why are Han and Leia so uptight about you having a little hissing fit?"

Luke looked at Wedge, almost mournfully. "You really have no idea about the ways of the Force, do you?"

Wedge thought a moment. "Um, nope, can't say I do!"

Luke couldn't resist a smile. "Okay Wedge, it's time for your first lesson in the ways of the Force."

Wedge's face lit up. "Cool! When do I get the lightsaber?!" He looked like a child who had been told he could get his Christmas Presents early.

Luke just blinked at him then cleared his throat, "Well, in times gone by, the Jedi knights were the guardians of pace, hope and justice...."

"Yeah, yeah! I've heard all this before!"

Luke glared at him, "Anyway, There's one, main rule to being a Jedi. Fear, anger and aggression lead to the dark side...."

"Oh so that's what they're so upset about!"

"Yep! That's it."

"That's what happened to your dad, right?"

"Way to put it subtly Wedge."

"Oh sorry," Wedge looked away, ashamed.

"Never mind Wedge. You see it wouldn't be _so_ bad it Leia hadn't been watching. Sure I shouldn't have done it but just because I did that doesn't make it all right! What kind of an example am I setting?" Luke put his head back in his hands.

Wedge patted Luke gingerly on the shoulder, "Don't worry. I'm sure neither of you will turn into evil, red lightsaber brandishing gits."

Luke grinned, "You really don't have any subtly to you?"

Wedge lay back on Luke's bunk and closed his eyes, "Not an ounce."

Luke got up and started to pace, "But you are right. My father did go over to the dark side. What if that happens to Leia?"

"I notice that you don't include yourself. You were the one who exploded in there." Wedge said, raising his hand above his head to gesture back to the kitchen.

"Fine then, me too!" Luke sighed, "But I'm hardly ever angry. What just happened......I haven't done I don't know how many years! Leia's always angry."

"So what you're saying is, that one day she's going to wake up wearing a big black mask and breathing like...." He did a really bad impression of Darth Vader's breathing.

Luke stopped pacing and stared at him. Wedge looked back at him and saw the expression on his face, "It's that subtlety thing again, isn't it?"

Luke gave a sarcastic smirk and nodded.

Wedge muttered, "Damn it."

Luke cast around for a change of subject, "So.....How were the rest of the Rogues when you left them?"

Wedge sat up, "Fine. Well as fine as they ever get, now that there's nothing to do."

"You don't hate it as much as you make out and I know it," Luke said his fake smile turning into a real one, "You'd be lost, lonely and generally sad if the Rogues left you."

"Well, I don't know. Sometimes I wish Janson would leave!" Wedge said jokingly, "Besides, if I find myself suddenly on my own, I'll always have you guys!"

"Sure Wedge, We'll always be here for you!" Luke said sarcastically turning away.

"Janson keeps trying to nick my position as Rogue Leader. I know he means it all in fun but sometimes I can't help but feel he's being serious."

"Well who wouldn't want to be leader of the Rogues'? The pay's great and you get to die an early and heroic death!" Luke shrugged his shoulders and, although his back was to Wedge, he grinned. "I remember when I was the leader and it was _you _trying to nick _my _position!"

"Uh..." Wedge thought. "Well it's not the same!"

Luke couldn't for the life of him see what was different about the two situations.

"So have you decided who's going to take over after you leave?"

"I dunno." Wedge said thoughtfully. "Maybe Hobbie, but not Wes, anyone but Janson!"

Luke knew perfectly well that the only reason Wedge refused to give up his position as Rogue Leader to Janson, was because he didn't want to feel as if his best friend had beaten him at last.

"Hang on!" Wedge said. "Wasn't this conversation about you and the 'ways of the Force'?"

Luke suddenly found his feet very interesting. He didn't want to go back to that conversation.

"Wedge, thanks, but I'm feeling a little bit tired."

There was a trace of disappointment in Wedge's voice as he said, "Um, okay, well, see you Luke."

"Yeah," Luke replied.

As Wedge walked towards the door he thought, '_Damn! I really wanted to learn how to use a lightsaber!' _

"Hey, Wedge," Luke said, "Tell Leia and Han that I'm really sorry and, how about we have another talk sometime?"

Wedge's face lit up. "Yeah, okay! And remember that if anything's ever bothering you, you can always come and talk to your Uncle Wedge!"

When the door closed behind him, Luke didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

'_I'm defiantly going to be having nightmares tonight!' _he thought as he lay down on his bunk and closed his eyes.

**A.N: **_This chapter is dedicated to Thorney's friend DE. Because every time Thorney is down in the dumps he always come up to her and says "You are troubled my child! Come tell Uncle Bob the travelling gypsy!" Then his eyes go really wide and he looks like Gollum out of Lord of the Rings!_

_Thorney is also is known as 'The Tactless' so that proves more than normal that her and Wedge are soul mates._

_Sweetdeath04: (Rolls eyes) ï_

**Thorney: Don't look at me like that missy!**

_Sweetdeath04: You can have Wedge all you want! I'm perfectly happy with my Han Solo and my Boba Fett!_

**Thorney: Oh no you don't! You can have Han but we are fighting over Fett!**

_Sweetdeath04: Hey you get Wedge, Kyle and Luke! Isn't three enough for you?_

**Thorney: Well you get Han, Dash and Lando! Isn't three enough for you too?**

_(They glare at each other for several minutes)_

**Thorney: okay here's the deal. I get Wedge Antilles, Luke Skywalker and Kyle Katarn. You get Han Solo, Lando Calrissian and Dash Rendar. We share Boba Fett. You get him on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I get him on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sunday is his day off! Agreed?**

_Sweetdeath04: Agreed!_

_(Shake hands)_

_By the way we aren't skiving school. There was a huge big power cut and apparently it's illegal to send kids to school without heat and electricity! Doesn't our lives rock!?!?_

_Sorry about the really long authors note!_

_Got to go!_

_**Thorney and Sweetdeath04** _


	16. Cockpit Conversations

Disclaimer: We don't own nothing. Not a single thing. Except this computer.

**A.N.** _This chapter is dedicated to **SailorLeia** as she is one of our most faithful reviewers and her reviews always make us laugh and give us the will to keep writing. She also reviewed all of Sweetdeath04's fics._

**Thank-you!**

**Cockpit Conversations **

Han found Luke fast asleep.

"Oi! Kid! Wake up! It's not bedtime yet! You're starting to go to bed as early as the twins!"

Luke groaned and rolled over. "I don't wanna get up yet Aunt Beru!"

Han froze, then shivered. "That's quite disturbing," he said, "Come on you lazy lump! Get up!"

"Ugh! Han, I was dreaming!" Luke finally sat up and replied blearily.

"What about?" asked Han.

"I'm not about to tell you!"

"Well you tell Wedge everything that's going on," Han said slightly hurt at being left out.....again.

"Hey that wasn't me!" Luke protested, "He forced me into it. He was acting all, strange."

"You mean stranger than usual!" Han whistled, "No wonder you cracked!"

"He kept telling me he was my Uncle Wedge and that I should talk to him more."

"You poor bugger," said, Han his voice full of sympathy, "Not only do you find out Darth Vader is your father, you find out Wedge Antilles is your uncle!"

Luke scowled, "Yeah and I've got this brother-in-law. He gambled away his own kids you know!"

"That's awf- WHAT!!!!" Han had only been half listening.

Luke laughed, "Hey it's not my fault I have rubbish family relations!"

"Don't let Leia hear you say that! Hey, um Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you do me a favour?"

"Depends. What would that favour be?"

Han looked at the floor, "Well, you know Wedge?"

Luke gave Han a look of false puzzlement, "I don't know. Is he that Rebel who-"

"Shut up Luke."

"Shutting up."

"If he leaves this room tonight would you follow him, or stop him, or kill him?"

"I'll follow him or stop him but not kill him. I couldn't be bothered to clean up. Why? Where do you think he's going to go?"

Han's tone was one of annoyance, "Luke don't make me explain the facts of life to you!"

Luke, once again, looked confused.

Han sat down beside him, "Luke, when a man and a woman love each other very much, or they've got very drunk,-"

"No!!!! It's okay I understand!!! I'll follow Wedge! Though, you know that Leia is just doing this to annoy you!"

Han grimaced, "Yeah, I know, but I'm not sure of Wedge's intentions." He got up to leave.

"Yes Han, I'll keep an eye on Wedge, but if he discovers me I'm going to rat on you."

"Ah, a true friend!" Han said sarcastically. As he went to open the door he stopped. "Hey, Luke? Keep the other eye on Lando."

......... ........... ............ ........... ........... ............ .............

Han stumbled across Leia who was sitting in the cockpit staring off into space. A tear trickled down her cheek as she looked at the direction the twins had left in.

Strangely enough, Han found himself thinking, _'Yes! She's gone into her sensitive side! Now is the best time to apologise.' _

"Hey Sweetheart," he said gently.

Leia jumped up and wiped the tears from her face with her sleeve as she spun around to face him. "What do you want?" She sounded tired and hollow.

Han rubbed the back of his head nervously, "Look, Leia, I know I'm a stupid git, and I don't know what I did, apart from kidnap you, to convince you to marry me, but I know that I love you more than anything and I don't want to loose you because I gambled away our kids. We're going to have to work together to get them back so, well," Han paused and took a deep breath, "I'm sorry."

Leia felt her heart soften, "I don't want us to fight either. You're right, we can't fight now. We have to work together, that includes not locking people in cargo holds and getting you're brother-in-law to stalk them, by the way," she finished sternly.

"What!?!? How do you know about that?"

Leia tapped her temples. "Luke contacted me as soon as you had left the room."

"I hate Jedi-ness," Han grumbled.

"Better get used to it," Leia advised, "all our kids are force sensitive!"

"Damn it, I'm outnumbered! Why couldn't we have just adopted?"

Leia laughed. "You were the one who wanted kids in the first place!" She hugged him saying, "I hope you know it's going to take a lot more than an apology for me to forgive you this time."

"Well," Han said thoughtfully, "I would propose, but we're already married."

"Well, maybe just a kiss then," said Leia, almost slyly.

"But you're all wet!" he protested.

"What?!"

"You've been crying," Han explained, as if to a little child. "You're all wet and..." He trailed off as he realised what he'd done, "Oh crap, I just insulted you, didn't I?"

"Yep! Maybe we could make up for five minutes! Just five! But no, you go in and stop me!" Leia slapped Han, hard.

"Owww! What was that for? All I said was-"

"Don't even go there Solo!"

Han was about to yell back, but at that minute, Lando entered the cockpit, "Hey guys have you seen.......Uh," he noticed that they were staring daggers at each other and quickly added, "I'll come back later," he back slowly out of the cockpit. After he had got a safe enough distance away he turned and ran.

They were about to restart their shouting match when Leia turned away, "I don't want to fight, but I'm not going to forgive you yet. You messed up, Han."

As she walked out the door, Han slumped into the pilot seat. It was going to be a long night.

**A.N. ** **Thorney: He He He! We're hyper! We've been eating a load of sugar and watching _The Matrix_ so we're climbing walls! (Get it?)**

_Sweetdeath04: Quit making the CD player jump Thorney! (She ALWAYS breaks something when she stays here!)_

**_Both: HALF TERM!!! FREEDOM!!!!_ **

_**Thorney and Sweetdeath04**_


	17. Crime and Punishment

Disclaimer: We don't own Star Wars or anything related to it, OK? Don't sue.

**Crime and Punishment**

The _Falcon_ was silent. For once.

But that was only because everyone was asleep. Well........almost everyone.

Leia awoke suddenly. She had just had a nightmare. Visions she hadn't seen for years.

Her,_ brave, strong _Han was being placed in carbonite.

So naturally the first person she would want to see when she woke up would be her husband. But he wasn't there.

She stared around the room, hoping he would crawl out from under the bed or come running through the door, crying apologies and declaring his undying love.......

But as we all know that isn't the _Han Solo_ style. He preferred kidnapping.

After several minutes, Leia found the strength to get up out of the bed, and search for Han.

It might have been out of habit or it might have been the Force, but she headed for the cockpit.

Indeed, he was there, at the controls. Working.

Leia checked her wrist crono. It was really late, or really early. You could call it what ever. He must have just forgotten the time.

She glanced up from her crono and saw Luke, nodded to him then looked back at her wrist. Realising what she had just seen, she started and looked up.

'Luke!' she mouthed at him, 'What are you doing here?'

Sure enough, there was her brother, dressed in his usual black attire with the one black glove on his right hand. He was leaning against the other side of the door, with his arms folded, grinning at his sister's reaction.

"_Well?" _ Leia demanded, poking into her brother's mind, _"An explanation to why you are following me in the dark, if you please. That's not like you Master Skywalker!"_

"_Just checking up on my dearest little sister in the world!"_ Luke mocked, _"You never know who might be lurking down these dingy corridors at night."_

This made Leia feel better. Luke was insulting the _Falcon_ now they had something to talk about. She even overlooked the 'little'.

"_I know, it would be just terrible if I met Wedge the Ripper or something!" _she 'said' the last bit sarcastically, _"Anyway, What's up? You seem a little bit.........hyper. Lando hasn't been selling you spice has he?"_

"_I wish."_

"_Luke Skywalker. Jedi Master and drug addict. Not a great image. But seriously."_

"_I've been keeping my word to Han, keeping one eye on Wedge and another on Lando. I can tell you, it hurts when both eyes are going opposite directions!"_

Leia suppressed a laugh, _"Speaking of Han-"_

"_He's punishing himself, Leia,"_ Luke cut in, _"For what he did to you and the twins."_

Leia looked again at Han. He was pale and forcing himself to stay awake by any means necessary.

"_Personally, I would have thought torture would have been better punishment," _her voice sounded scathing in Luke's head.

"_Leia,"_ he warned, _"We have to sort him out, he should have put it on auto pilot hours ago."_

Leia looked at him pleadingly, _"He's all yours," _she gestured from her brother to her husband.

Luke nodded and made his presence in the cockpit known to its single occupant.

"Han, get some sleep."

Han looked up at Luke blearily. "I thought you were meant to be keeping an eye on Wedge." Han forced his eyes to stay open.

"I knocked him out with the hilt of my lightsaber," Luke lied quickly. "Come on, let's get you to bed." He hit the autopilot button and half carried, half dragged Han out of the cockpit.

On exiting he passed Leia and whispered one word in her ear, "Success!"

Leia nodded her approval and followed them to her and Han's room.

When they were passing the room all the other boys slept in, the door slid open revealing Wedge and Lando, who paused.

"Where are you going?" Luke hissed at them.

They replied innocently, "Nowhere!"

Luke stared at them pointedly and jabbed his thumb at the room, and both Lando and Wedge retreated into it, a hint of disappointment showed on their faces.

When they finally reached Han and Leia's room, Luke, with Leia's help, managed to get Han up on the bed, where he promptly closed his eyes and fell into a blissful sleep.

**A.N. **_Very short and not the best, but it'll have to do. We're running short of time._

_**Sweetdeath04 and Thorney**_


	18. A Different Kind of Abduction

Disclaimer: Completely new disclaimer for a completely new chapter. But not completely new content. We don't own anything. So if you don't mind, please hold your pitchforks and flaming torches to the end of the tour. BEEP! Thank you. big cheesy smiles

**A.N.** Hellooo_, helloooo, helloooooo! Welcome to the Mad House, situated in Crazy Town! (Yes, we saw A Series of Unfortunate Events! It rox!!!) Your guides today will be Sweetdeath04, Thorney and our mystery guest, who, for a one off, will be assisting us in the writing of this chapter! Try and guess who it is! We'll tell you later. (And yes we have over run the deadline so YELL AT US!!!!! Later……) _

**A Different Kind of Abduction**

Han sat up to stop himself choking on his own pillow. With a jolt of realisation, he noticed that the ship was no longer moving.

He sprang out of bed to find out what was happening. Running to the cockpit he stopped at the door to find no one there. He spun around a few times, still finding no-one. He was completely confused. What was going on? He didn't like this eerie feeling of being alone. Not everyone could just vanish into thin air. What was that kid teaching them? He whimpered, thinking no-one could see or hear him.

"Aw, is poor wittle Han getting scared?" Luke had suddenly appeared from nowhere and was standing in the doorway grinning.

Han tried to act cool. "What have you guys done to my ship?"

"Uh, we landed it, in case you haven't noticed."

"That _it _is a _her_."

"Wow, I didn't know you could tell the difference between boy ships and girl ships. I didn't even know there _were_ girl ships and boy ships." He looked around thoughtfully. "Why do they _need_ genders? It's not like they can breed or anything."

"_All _ships are girls." Han rolled his eyes as if this was the most obvious thing in the galaxy, which to him it was. He stroked the side of the _Falcon's_ control panel lovingly.

Luke somehow managed to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Lando jogged up the ramp, looking as sexy as ever. (**A.N.** _This is Sweetdeath04. Thorney and our special mystery guest, hint, hint, had nothing to do with it!_)

"It was _you_, wasn't it? I should have known."

"What? Didn't you like my parking job?"

"Man, Lando, you can't keep your hands off my wife and now you're starting on my ship! _Why, _oh_ why_ do you torment me so?"

"Because I'm your best friend, it's my job!"

"When did this come about?"

"Just now!"

Han sighed. "Fine, fine," He really couldn't be bothered arguing with Lando now. Well, not this early in the morning anyway. What time was it anyway?

Han voiced his query, and the only reply he got was, "Late". Grumbling about unhelpful friends and difficult relatives, he made his way to the cockpit. When he got there he stared out at Commenor. Even though he'd been there too many times to count, it never ceased to stun him how much Commenor reminded him of Mos Eisley. It had the same shapes of buildings and everything seemed to be made out of mud and straw. It had bars that looked as if the drinks would either evaporate, go mouldy or burn holes in your stomach lining.

Well, it wasn't perfect but it was sure better than returning home to Corellia. He had unpleasant memories of that place.

Lando, who had followed Han into the cockpit, put a voice to Han's opinion. "This place is the pits!"

"Exactly," Han turned around in his seat. "Which is why no-one is allowed to leave the ship unless they're on business for me."

Lando looked at him and said cautiously, "By no-one you mean Leia, don't you?"

Han said nothing, just scowled and left.

…..

"I'm an adult Han! I can do what I want!" Leia protested fiercely.

Han sighed and said slowly, as though talking to as small child, "But I'm your husband. Besides," he added foolishly, "everyone knows that males are the dominant gender."

Leia was too angry to speak. Instead she glared daggers at him, with enough venom to kill a gundark. Sensing that she wasn't going to listen to his command Han quickly invented a story, "Um……I…I've programmed……Threepio……to……Um…._kill _anyone who…. uh….decides to……disobey my wishes?" It sounded more like a question than a statement.

"Please explain to your _ignorant _wife, how Threepio is going to kill someone?" Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"Um…." Han paused to think. "Bore the offenders to death?"

"No I mean…..he isn't with us anymore!"

"Ahhhh, but he'll always be with us in spirit!" said Lando in a slightly morbid voice, as he came round a corner

"Are you following me everywhere today?" Han asked.

'_Not anymore,' _groaned Chewie as he came into view, _'We're going shopping now.'_

Han almost shivered, "Ok, be as quick as you can, and send Chewie back when you find stuff."

"Alright, I know some people round here," Lando headed for the ramp, "Shouldn't be too long. Be a good girl Leia!" he didn't see her blush, because he and Chewie had already strolled down the ramp and away into the mass of the city.

Han turned back to Leia and pointed the finger or authority at her. "Don't leave the ship under any circumstances, otherwise we might fly off without you!" He was only half joking.

With that he turned and sped away in the direction of nowhere. Leia felt her 'gentle' spirit being crushed. The thing she wanted to do was get off this blasted ship! She herself started off in the direction of nowhere. Then, suddenly, her wrist was grabbed from behind and a hand flew over her mouth.

She didn't even try to scream when she found herself face to face with one Wedge Antilles. He gently lifted his hand off her mouth and let her speak.

"Why aren't you with the other fixing the ship?"

Wedge shrugged lightly and in reply to her question said, "They said that they didn't trust me. And they also said some thing about, 'holding up the rescue operation more than I already have'. Can't imagine why though."

"Right…."said Leia pretending to sympathise, "What do you want? And was with the 'pulling me into the shadows' gig?

Wedge grinned, "I've just always wanted to do that…especially to a princess." Leia was strongly reminded of Han.

"What do you want?" she repeated.

Wedge grinned even more widely, leaned close and whispered something in her ear. When he stepped back he had a devious smirk on his face. Leia didn't know whether to be shocked, appalled, just plain scared or whether to warm to the idea.

A dazed look came over her face as she imagined a little angel appear on her left shoulder, and to her amazement, it looked very similar to Luke. It sounded like him too, well, Luke crossed with Threepio.

'_No! You mustn't! That would be disloyal to your Mast- I mean, husband!'_ The angel had an almost scandalous look on its face.

But almost immediately after the Luke looking angel had appeared, a devil appeared on her right shoulder. This one looked like Darth Vader and sounded like him, complete with breathing. But was that a hint of Han?

'_Whhhhhoooooo Ppppppaaaaaaaaa. Don't listen to him! Whhhhoooooo Pppppppaaaaaaa. He doesn't know anything! How could he? He's wearing a dress and fairy wings!!!'_

'_At least I can breathe on my own!'_ retorted the angel._ 'I have enough intelligence to do that! Remember Leia, disobedience is of the Dark Side!'_

The devil replied to that comment with verbal violence. _'And if she listened to your advise all the time she'd be sitting at home serving her husband and his friends tea and cakes and wearing a flowery apron that says something like "The Dog, The Woman and the Chestnut tree. The harder you beat them the better they be"!'_

The angel shook his head sadly. _'Not all fun has good consequences. You're husband had fun and he gambled away your children! You don't want to turn out like that, do you dearie?'_

'_There are no more kids to gamble away!'_ exclaimed the Vader/Han devil.

'_Well, there is Anakin. But no one really cares about him!'_

It was the angels comment about Anakin that made up her mind for her. Damn Luke's angel side. She was going to listen to her personal devil!

Shaking her head and coming back to the real world she noticed Wedge was giving her a funny look.

"Well?" he said.

Leia nodded vigorously while thinking,_ 'This certainly is a different kind of abduction!'_

Wedge took her hand and slowly led her down the ramp.

**A.N. **_Okay, we've over run our deadline, yell at us. So, did you enjoy your tour of the Mad House? Again, this and the next chapter were originally going to be one, but this got too long. How many times had that happened now? Three million?_

_Anyway, did you guess who our Mystery Guest was? Well, (drum roll please) it was **MistyRiver**!!!! Please check out her account (which you can't find on Search) if you like her work, eg.' _"Man, Lando, you can't keep your hands off my wife and now you're starting on my ship! _Why, _oh_ why_ do you torment me so?"'

_So, our new deadline is Easter. Wish us luck and we're sorry it took so long to update but Thorney had been away all Christmas._

_Sweetdeath04 glares evilly at Thorney._

_**Thorney and Sweetdeath04** _


	19. Spaltering Jedi

Disclaimer: We don't own Star Wars or anything related to it, OK? Don't sue.

**Spaltering Jedi**

"Leia!" Han called; he had been running round the _Falcon_ looking for his wife and had been unsuccessful, "Leia! Leia!"

"Wedge! Wed- AHH!"

SMACK! Luke ran suddenly around a corner, headlong into Han. Both of them cried out and fell backwards.

Han got up quickly, but Luke remained flat on his back on the floor.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "I think I've fallen down more times on this 'trip' than I have in the rest of my life."

Han gave him a gentle kick, then pulled him to his feet asking, "Why were _you_ running?"

"I wasn't _running_, Han. I was _spaltering_!"

"Splatter…What?"

"Spaltering! You know…"

Luke took a few steps back then started running, half doubled over, arms propelling him through the air, legs flying out behind him. Han thought he looked as if he was going to fall flat on his face but was doing his best to prevent it.

Han raised an eyebrow, his arms across his chest.

"Hey! Jedi don't need to be up tight all the time."

"Right…" Han was aware that more of Luke's '_Farmboyishness'_ had come out on this journey than it had in a long time, "So why were you 'spaltering' then?"

"I was looking for Wedge," Luke said brightly, "I haven't seen him in a while and we know what kind of trouble he can get into without adult supervision!"

Han smiled, "Well I was looking for Leia. I haven't seen her in a while eith…er…"

He looked up at Luke, "You've searched the _entire _ship for Wedge, have you?"

Luke was starting to look worried, "Well, yeah but I didn't see Leia either as a matter of fact……"

Both were staring at each other with looks of now complete horror on their faces.

"You go that way! I go this way!"

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

It was apparent, even after only five minutes of searching that the _Falcon_ had not under gone a good spring clean in quite a few decades. They found half eaten and decomposing meals in the strangest places, travel brochures for Ylesia and Endor and even a Minok skeleton in one of the upper rooms. They also found hidden compartments that Han didn't even remember having.

"What other secret compartments do you have?" Luke yelled to Han, who was in another room.

Han turned to the wall that Luke was on the other side of and screamed in a high pitched voice, "I DON'T KNOW!" as he waved his hands wildly.

Eventually, the two men met up in one of the rooms in the _Falcon _that was completely jammed full of junk. They were so desperate to find even the slightest hint of where the two runaways had gone, that they were looking in the most absurd places, like inside the fridge.

Han began to dig inside an enormous chest while Luke searched another.

He pulled the top off so he could look inside. On the very top was a picture of a girl with red hair. He didn't notice the name scribbled on the back, _Bria Tharen._

Without looking he brandished it over shoulder at Han, "Who's this?"

Han snatched the picture away and stuffed it in his own box, "Don't want to talk about it."

Luke found several other pictures of himself, Leia, Lando, Chewie, the children and even one of deceased arch nemesis, Boba Fett. He then found one huge one of them at Endor. Luke remembered it being taken by Wedge after the _Death Star _had been destroyed and the Emperor had been defeated.

He found items which told the long and familiar story of the time he had known Han;

He found a stormtrooper belt, that Luke realized was the one that Han had been wearing when they had rescued Leia from the first_ Death Star._

The medal that he had won at the Battle of Yavin. Luke was surprised that Han hadn't sold it in a desperate attempt to make money.

A wampa tooth that hung from a chain, and a metal leg that said _Probe droid: Imperial Standard. _Luke was sure it was the one that Han had 'blown up' while on Hoth.

Luke noticed there was nothing from Cloud City, but he supposed that _Lando_ was Han's biggest souvenir.

And then…..

"HAN! Why did you keep _this_?"

Han turned around to see, Luke holding up the slave suit that Leia had been forced to wear while she was made to be a dancer for Jabba. A dreamy expression came over Han's face.

"Oh I dunno why I kept that," his eyes glazed over as if he was thinking about something else.

Luke threw the costume at Han who caught it, folded it as if it was a precious artifact, and put it in the other chest.

Luke returned to his rummaging. He pulled out another item of clothing, a blue cape that clearly belonged to a general of the rebel alliance. Luke grinned, Lando had once owned a cape just like that…

His suspicions that the cape was stolen were confirmed when he spotted the name tag that read, **LANDO CALRISSIAN**. He doubted if it would ever return to its rightful owner.

Luke almost stabbed himself with the broken end of an Ewok spear which was half embedded in a stormtrooper helmet.

He extracted a broken gun with a gold chain encrusted with dazzling jewels. Luke was positive he had seen this exact chain on the Hapen Prince Isolder a few years ago. It looked extremely expensive and Luke was sure that Han hadn't bought it from the prince and that it hadn't been one of the many wedding presents they had received.

By this point Han had left the room to double check and re-double-check every room, but Luke was captivated by the last few items in the 'memories trunk'.

An Imperial uniform with the insignias ripped off it. Luke was almost nervous as he lifted it out of the trunk. On the collar was written, _Property of Privet Solo _and the whole thing looked well lived in.

"I did not see this, I did not see this…" Luke was not aware that he had been holding his breath while he examined the uniform. He gulped and dropped it into the trunk as if it was a poisonous snake.

Something fluttered out of one of the selves. Luke frowned and picked up the three photographs.

The first was of Han, complete with uniform, looking smart and almost professional with the Imperial crest on his chest.

The second photo seemed to have a much more relaxed atmosphere. It showed Han in the centre with about ten other people, all of them in Imperial uniform standing around him. They were all grinning and, Luke noticed, they were all young. Han looked about twenty and he was one of the oldest.

The third and last picture caught Luke's interest more than the others.

It showed Han and a slightly older man, who Luke had seen in the second photo. They were in their uniforms and were both grinning mischievously.

Luke flipped it over and on the back was written **Me** (**Mako Spince) and The Kid (Han Solo)**. It was in a hand that definitely wasn't Han's

Luke turned it over again. The two men looked like best friends, but the Force told him that was long ago forgotten and buried in a past Han rarely mentioned.

Suddenly, Luke heard footsteps coming back to ward the room. He hastily threw the pictures back into the chest and slammed it shut. And then he saw it. The small pouch on the lid of the trunk. His curiosity overtook him and he ripped it open. Without even looking and what he was taking he grabbed the contents and pocketed it.

Han came into the room. He was smiling triumphantly and holding up a leaflet which showed a local bar.

All Han said was, "Got him," it was all he needed to say.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

"I found it in Wedge's room, "Han said as the pair rushed toward the ramp of the _Falcon, _"I mean, think about it. Bored Pilot finds out about a bar and goes out to have a good time with MY WIFE!"

"And," Luke continued, taking the leaflet from Han, "It says here that if you bring a lady with you, you get in half price!"

"That……Ugh!" Han growled.

Luke strolled down the ramp as soon as Han opened it, but Han himself paused. He knew it wasn't the moment, time or place, but he HAD to try it.

Doubling himself up he spread out his arms and propelled himself forward down the ramp, his legs flaying out behind him. In a bad but a definite spalter he quietly caught up with his brother-in-law, being careful that Luke didn't see him.

Han straightened up and came level with Luke. He didn't need to see what Han had just done. Luke's Jedi senses told him everything.

"See!" he said cheerfully. "It's not that difficult, is it!"

**A.N. **_This chapter is dedicated to the Young Farmers Club which Sweetdeath04 attends. In their Arts Festival there was a guy wearing a kilt who spaltered on stage. Sweetdeath04 has just shown Thorney how to spalter. Thorney, what do you have to say?_

**Thorney: Spaltering is SO MUCH FUN! You HAVE to try it dudes!**

_And that's her opinion._

_We're still aiming for Easter as our deadline but it looks as if we're not going to get this finished by then. The other thing is that we are aiming for one hundred reviews for this story, so tell your friends about us and a review for every chapter would be greatly appreciated. _

_We were going to write this in America but we didn't have time. If you wanna know the precise details read Diaries of a Dark Lord and check out the A.N. at the end of chapter two._

_Updates may be few and far between each as we have 'important' exams coming up in less than two weeks. But stay loyal folks!_

_Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far and don't hesitate to do so again!_

_By the way, the picture Luke found in the chest of them all on Endor is the last shot at the end of RotJ. The reason Wedge took the picture was because Thorney wouldn't stop nagging about how she thought Wedge should be in it too so we gave him the excuse of being behind the camera at the time!_

_Til next time!_

_**Sweetdeath04 and Thorney** _


	20. The Bar Scene

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Wish we did. Need we say more?

**A.N. **_Just to start of with, today is a very special day, hence why we are posting an update. Today we are **one whole year old!** It was this day one year ago that we posted our first fanfic, **'What would happen if Aragorn got a Car?'** on this site! (sniffs dramatically) Isn't it wonderful! So Happy Birthday to US! Wow! It really doesn't feel like that long ago. Anyway, enough babble! On with the show!_

**The Bar Scene**

Luke and Han had been walking and, from time to time, spaltering, for about ten minutes until a wookiee roar alerted them to the fact that they had company.

Chewie appeared from one of the side alleyways and appeared to be juggling the parts for the _Falcon. _

'_Han! Han! You won't believe what Lando's done! He's-"_

Han brandished the flyer of the bar they were heading to in the wookiee's furry face and vented out some of his anger.

"We don't have time for that now Chewie! That…" he trailed off, trying to think of a vulgar enough word to describe Wedge. He couldn't think of one. "…Wedge, has kidnapped my wife!"

"Don't you think that _'kidnapped' _is a bit strong?" Luke asked, startled.

Han looked blankly at him. "No," he stated bluntly.

Luke rolled his eyes but said nothing like any good friend should. Chewie roared at them, clearly intent on getting the conversation back onto what really mattered. Han simply nodded and handed the leaflet he had taken from Wedge's room to Chewbacca.

"Leave that," he gestured at the parts, "on the _Falcon _and follow us as soon as possible. We may need your help to reduce the villain to a shivering wreck before he gives back my wife!" Han said this with such ferocity that it made both Luke and Chewie stare wordlessly. Han's speech caused Chewie to drop one of the most vital parts needed to repair the _Falcon, _and Han only just managed to catch it before it hit the ground.

Though instead of yelling at his co-pilot, as he would have done if the situation to find Wedge and Leia had not been so dire, Han just pointed in the direction of the _Falcon _and then at the leaflet. His meaning was perfectly clear and Chewie growled the affirmative and then headed off in the opposite direction of Luke and Han. Luke just continued to stare open-mouthed at Han.

"C'mon, let's go," Han said, ignoring Luke's face. They walked on in the direction of the bar, but when they arrived it looked more like a nightclub, with flashing lights that blinded them and left spots of light in front of their eyes.

They had been just about to enter when they were approached two very tall, very strong looking humans. Both were wearing black suits and dark sunglasses.

"I.D. and entrance fee please," they droned in unison. Han wondered how they were going to get out of this sticky spot and contemplating dressing Luke up as a girl so they could get in half price when Luke adopted a mesmeric voice.

"You don't need to see our I.D.'s and you don't want our entrance fee."

The Bouncers eyes glazed over and they repeated the words hollowly.

"We can go on in," Jedi Master Skywalker added.

"You can go on in." The Bouncers beckoned them in.

They soon found upon walking in that the bar had had two floors. The ground floor was for the bar and the dance floor whilst upstairs was for the gambling suit.

The urge to find Leia and make Wedge suffer a very painful death overcame Han's want to have a try at a few hands of Sabacc. A soft growl behind him made Han start. Chewie had quickly caught up with them again and was using his extra height and sensitive sense of smell to detect Wedge. Han and Luke followed his lead to the bar at the other side of the dance floor.

Han was dreading finding Wedge and Leia dancing together or-. No. It didn't help thinking about it.

His prayers were answered. There was Wedge slumped against the bar.

The trio approached the man who looked as though he was in a drunken stupor and was muttering something about having no friends.

Chewie reached him first and kindly asked him questions about Leia's whereabouts. Wedge didn't understand a word, or growl, of it.

"Chewie!" he cried. "Chewie! You're my only friend!" Chewie patted the man on the back sympathetically as Han strode forward, grabbing Wedge by the scruff of the neck.

"You can't be nice about this sort of stuff Chewie!" Han stated grimly, before turning back to Wedge. "Alright you psychopathic maniac!" he cried, almost lifting Wedge off the ground. "What have you done with my equally psychopathic maniac... ish...wife!"

The demand couldn't have been clearer but Wedge still looked confused. After a tense few seconds, in which Han's face grew even more livid, Wedge said mournfully, "Han! You're my only friend!"

Han didn't say anything. He simply let Wedge go and let him fall to the floor.

Luke stepped forward and although he didn't offer to help Wedge up off the floor, he asked calmly, "Wedge, where did Leia go?" with all his Jedi grace.

Wedge sat up and crossed his arms so they were pointing in different direction. "She went that way!" he expressed urgently. "And that way!" He was now pointing up and down. He paused a moment, then continued by throwing his arms up in the air and cried in the voice of someone who was distressed and defeated, "_Simultaneously!_"

He yelled this so loud that several people turned and gave the group funny looks.

This had taken so much energy out of poor Wedge that he relaxed and passed out right there and then on the floor of the bar.

"Chewie, pick 'im up and wait for us at the door," Han ordered. "Luke and me'll look for Leia."

The duo searched the entire ground floor, and although Luke's Jedi senses told him that Leia was defiantly in the building, he couldn't imagine her up at the gambling tables. Eventually they had no choice but to check upstairs, as the only other place apart from there that she could be was the ladies toilets and they had received some rather dirty looks when they had attempted to continue their search in that particular place.

As soon as they were at the top of the old staircase that led them to the gambling suit they spotted Leia but she looked far from her best. Her hair was a mess and she was obviously tipsy, not as much as Wedge, but they could tell that she'd had a little too much. She was seated at a table with four evil and sinister looking weal quays. They were all peering over the tops of their cards, with their shifty eyes all fixed on Leia.

Han didn't recognise the deck that they were using, which was saying something as he had played with most decks that had been invented. He was shocked to find that Leia's face was as blank as Lando's might have been, had he been in that situation.

Suddenly, her face spilt into a wide grin and she yelled out, _"Go fish!"_

Han grabbed Leia and pulled her away from the disappointed weal quays, some of whom were almost in tears.

"Take care boys!" Leia cried over her shoulder and in response got four depressed "Bye,"'s.

"You're drunk!" Han hissed at her.

Leia's reply was indignant. "No I'm not!"

"So what were you doing?"

Leia looked surprised that Han hadn't already worked it out. "I was playing Go Fish. What did it look like?"

It was only when she spoke in long sentences that the slurring of her words became more apparent. Han didn't mention it.

"Like you were _gambling_!"

Leia smiled brightly, "I was!" She seemed pleased that Han had grasped the fact so quickly. "You see, my dearest, unlike you, I didn't _loose_! And I didn't gamble away anything _living_!"

"That was below the belt," Han said grouchily as he steered her back towards the staircase where Luke was waiting patiently for them.

"So darling!" Leia spoke to her husband in a posh and over-the-top accent. "What did you do while I was away?"

Han stared at her. She was obviously trying to change the subject and wasn't making a very good job of it. But Han wasn't going to stop her. Might as well let her have her fun now. She was going to have too big a hangover the next day to enjoy herself then!

"I learnt how to spalter," he said softly.

"Oh really!" Leia asked, now sounding very much like an over excited child. "Spaltering is very... very... good for... for you- "

Leia's legs crumpled beneath her and she collapsed into Luke open arms. Who said Jedi reflexes weren't useful?

"She's completely wasted!" exclaimed Han disapprovingly to his brother-in-law. "And she was gambling! Not a good combination!" He commented on the last part wisely.

"Yes, and you'd know all about that, wouldn't you," Luke retorted smoothly whilst he handed Leia's limp body over to Han.

"Come on," Han ignored Luke's comment. He cradled Leia gently, trying not to jostle her about too much. "We should get out of here before Chewie decides to try out karaoke!"

**A.N. **_You guys have no idea what we went through to bring you this chapter for our birthday! First we wrote it out with pen and paper whilst we were on a bus on a History Field Trip. Then we had to type it out on a computer and get it posted!_

_We have been waiting for this chapter for a long time. It's one of the special chapters. Well, they're all special, but this one is special-err!_

_A word of warning. Don't hold your breath waiting for the next chapters. We've just done some exams and have more to come very shortly. Not nice, huh? But it's our Easter Hols in a couple of days so you never know! We know for a fact that holidays are a great cure for homework and writers block!_

_By the way, this chapter is dedicated to__**that girl with orange hair and a wheelchair **because the "She went that way!" thing is all hers! She made it and was kind enough to let us borrow it!_

_A special thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and another special thanks for everyone who has been reviewing any of our stories in the past year! We owe you guys!_

_Please R&R!_

**_Sweetdeath04 and Thorney_**


	21. Sugar and Spice

Disclaimer: We don't own nothing. Not a single thing. Except this computer.

**Sugar and Spice**

Han was knackered. All he wanted to do was go back to the _Falcon _and sleep! As he carried the limp form of Leia around the corner towards the docking bay he was met with an unpleasant sight, men loading large boxes onto the _Falcon _and Lando directing them, pointing to different places on the ship with one hand and ticking things off on his clipboard with the other.

"How much did you get?" Han asked, coming up behind Lando. "Do we really need all these parts for the _Falcon?_"

Lando turned around on the spot very slowly, a large cheesy on his face. "Han! You know you're my bestest buddy in the world, don't you?" He put his arm around Han's shoulders and led him away from the ship.

"What did you do?" Han asked incredulously. "How much did you spend?"

"Not much! That's the point!" Lando glanced down at the figure in Han's arms. "Hey, what happened to her?"

Han too, glanced down but quickly whipped his head back up again, "Don't change the subject! Where are the parts?"

Lando laughed nervously. "Oh I got the parts alright, they're over there," He waved vaguely in the direction of some other smaller boxes, "the point is that all this other… stuff- it was daylight robbery! On my part!"

"Lando!" Luke called out, jogging over to them. Lando glanced away guiltily, "Lando!" Luke came to a halt beside them, "What's the _Falcon_ doing full of _spice_?" He held out his hand which contained a small pile of a white powdery substance. It was so fine that a little trickled through the gaps between his fingers.

"Watch it!" Lando dropped to the ground attempting, in vain, to catch it before it got lost in the dirt. He stood up again saying, "That is part of a very valuable investment!"

"I thought you said it was cheap!" Han lowered his voice to what was almost a growl.

"It was! But I bought so much of it that-" He cut himself off. "Never mind, just be careful with it. I was planning on taking it with us to Nar Shaddaa and selling it for an extortionate price! And you'll get a part of the profit 'cause you're the best smuggler in the galaxy!" Lando playfully punched Han on the shoulder.

"Hang on a minute Lando," If Han wasn't carrying Leia he would have punched Lando _hard _on the face, "You're forgetting one thing. I'm on the straight and narrow now."

"Straight, are you sure?" Lando mumbled beneath his breath.

"What's that supposed to mean!"

Luke had a vision of what could turn into a very ugly fight. "All right, all right. Nice and friendly gentlemen!"

"Come on Han, you know you want to, you know, relive the old days when you were a top class bachelor and smuggler! Why not now?"

"Because we're supposed to be on mission to rescue my kids! This is not just an excuse for you to be making some extra cash! If you want to smuggle spice go and get the _Lady Luck_. My ship is off limits! We'll talk about this in the morning!" Han was too tired to say any more on the subject.

Stalking off into the _Falcon_, dodging boxes and crates, he finally made his way to his cabin to dump Leia and get some sleep.

**A.N.**_ We know it's a short chapter but we're not really in the mood to write. Forgive us! Yet again we've overrun our deadline. (Audience throw broken bottles and rotten tomatoes at us) But we have a new deadline! (Audience groans knowing that we'll overrun it again) It's a year after the date we started._

**Thorney: Can I read the AC/DC thing now?**

_Sweetdeath04: Yes._

**Thorney: So why aren't you giving it to me?**

_Sweetdeath04: Because you know where it is and I'm typing!_

**Thorney: (Retrieves AC/DC thing.)**

**Oh my gosh! Bon Scott was married?**

_Sweetdeath04: (Rolls eyes emphatically.)_

**Thorney: Humph! Just 'cause I'm slightly obsessive!**

_Sweetdeath04: Slightly?_

**Thorney: What should I say? Long Live Rock 'N' Roll?**

_Sweetdeath04: (Hit's Thorney over the back of the head with a dictionary)_

_And that's us for now folks! Sorry about the short chapter!_

_**Sweetdeath04 and (unconscious) Thorney**_

**Thorney: (Wakes up) Long Live Rock 'N' Roll! Angus was so cool in the eighties! So hot!**

_Sweetdeath04: Thorney has been eating smarties. Please ignore everything she says!_


	22. Twas the Night before Tomorrow

Disclaimer: Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, We don't own, you don't sue!

'**Twas the night before Tomorrow**

'Twas the night before tomorrow, and all through the _Falcon_, not a creature was stirring, not even a-…..

Hang on! There was something stirring in the _Falcon_ that night! As everyone slept soundly in their bunks, dreaming of the twins, oil and spice, someone was very much awake.

The boys' room was deadly silent. Several figures lay on the floor, on the bed and on the sofa, all of them smothered in blankets. The door swung open slightly, sending a thin beam of light into the otherwise black room. Someone crept into the room. They moved without noise. And they headed straight towards the source of their magnificent prize. It didn't take them long to locate the object. As they left just as silently, there was something that had been in the room before, that was no longer in its proper position.

Morning dawned bright an early, and so did Luke, much to everyone else's annoyance.

"Rise and shine! It's a beautiful day! The suns are shining, the birds are squawking!" Luke decided that he couldn't really call that noise singing. It sounded more like an out of tune piano being thrown out of an upstairs window.

His short speech was met with groans and weak protests. Someone threw a pillow, hitting the back of Luke's head. He didn't catch the culprit, so wrapped up in blankets was he. Slowly people started to drag themselves out of their nests.

"Come on Lando! Get up!" Luke cried in a sickeningly joyful tone.

"NO! I want my bed!" Lando's reply was barely heard.

Luke attempted to pull the blankets off him, but the sleepy man possessed a strength in his desperateness that not even Luke could match.

"No! Don't take it away from me!" At this point Luke resorted to another method. Lando's feet were sticking out from below the blankets. Luke couldn't resist. He tickled them!

Lando let out a howl like a wounded nerf and lashed out, thankfully not hitting anyone, before curling back under the covers.

The Force was meant to be used as an ally, but this was an emergency. Sort of. Luke was sure that it wouldn't matter too much!

Lando was slowly lifted up, up and away from the bed. The blankets fell, cascading down around the occupants of the room who were watching on, bleary eyed.

"Okay! OKAY! Let me down! I'm up! I'm up already! All I wanted was five more minutes! I promise I'll be a good boy!"

Eventually, Lando was on the floor and he curled up at the feet of Luke.

"Get up Lando," said the Jedi Master, trying not to laugh.

About an hour later everyone was dressed and had food in their stomachs, they went outside to find Han. Indeed they did find him, covered in oil, grease and who knows what else. He was just putting the finishing touches to the Falcon. He grinned for the first time in ages.

"We're almost ready to go! Lando, did you get rid of all the spice?"

Lando nodded unhappily. Han looked at him scrutinising him.

Leia finally made an appearance. Walking down the ramp she smiled at them, happy to be getting on with the search for her children.

"Good morning! Sleep well?"

She was met with grumbles and groans especially from Lando.

"So," Leia continued, clapping and rubbing her hands, "If there are no further interruptions, can we get on with this expedition-"

BANG! A red blaster bolt narrowly missed Han hitting the _Falcon_ instead.

Everyone reacted at once. Han drew his blaster; it almost slipped out of his greasy hand. Lando and Wedge grabbed their blasters and dived behind the same crate for cover. Leia's lightsabre was in her hand before you could even blink but she did the sensibly thing and also took cover until she could locate her adversaries.

Luke also went for his lightsabre but- "WHERE THE HELL IS MY LIGHTSABRE?"

This comment was greeted with several people yelling "WHAT?"

Luke dived for shelter with Leia who started to scream at him. Not because she was mad, but because there were now hundreds of bolts being fired at them and the noise was deafening.

"HOW DID YOU FORGET YOUR SABRE?" she yelled, peering over the top of the crate just enough so she could see.

"I DIDN'T!" he insisted, "I ALWAYS KEEP IT RIGHT BESIDE ME ALL NIGHT AND DAY!"

"OH GOSH…." Leia ducked down again as a bolt came flying over her, "GUESS WHO?"

Luke had already guessed. Their attackers were the same henchmen who had attempted to blow them out of existence a couple of days ago, except this time there were more of them, a lot more. At least thirty seven.

"RIGHT," Luke said, thinking fast.

Around him the battle had already begun. Han had shot down at least one of the attackers who had been foolish enough to leave the safety of cover for a few seconds. Han had fired a perfectly aimed shot at a difficult angle and it had hit the pirate straight between the eyes. But he wasn't the only hotshot with a blaster in the area.

Leia's timing was perfect, her aim unquestionable. She straightened up and shot with her newly drawn blaster.

The bolt hit a guy on the top of the head as he tried to hide behind a wall. He fell and Luke heard his armour clatter against the hard ground.

'_For all the good it did him' _he thought, _'he should have worn a helmet!'_

Leia continued to fire the blaster over the top of their shelter.

"Why are you just sitting there?"****she yelled suddenly at Luke. "Get out there and kill some people!"

Luke didn't even bother to point out that the statement was far too un-Jedi like.

"With what?" he yelled back. "Someone's nicked my-"

Leia shoved something into his hand. "Here!"

He looked down at Leia's lightsabre which was now in his hand. "I can't use this!"

"Yes you can! You'll do more damage with than me!"

Luke knew his sister wasn't hearing any excuses so he didn't bother to argue. He reactivated the lightsabre which cast a purple beam across his face.

He was gone in a flash, jumping crates at an incredible speed and landed exquisitely in the middle of the battle, which promptly stopped to stare at him.

This peace only lasted a split second. One of the attackers sprang forward with a war cry, charging straight for Luke. Inspired, another seven followed him, brandishing their weapons.

Leia, Han, Wedge and Lando prepared to fire but had no need as Luke got their first. The leader of the gang, the man who had been first to advance, drew a _very_ primitive looking machete from his belt.

Swinging it at Luke, it came as close as a millimetre to his face before Luke ducked out of harms way.

As the machete wielding man came in with an overhead approach Luke ducked, rolled and sliced the man in two equal halves.

Leia tutted and rolled her eyes at her brothers neatness, even though no one could hear her over the noise.

A second man came charging and Luke wasted no time. The attacker was promptly decapitated as Luke ducked to avoid another overhead attack from a Rodian. Luke kicked him from his crouched position with such strength that the little green 'man' was thrown backwards onto the ground. Luke twirled the sabre and stabbed him in the stomach.

By now some of the pirates had run off into the dark alleyways, yelling for mercy, a few had been killed by Luke and his back up, namely, Han, Leia, Lando and Wedge. But the bravest, or should we say, stupidest of the Bounty Hunters had stayed to battle it out. Only problem was, these were the most deadly. They somehow formed an organised offence.

All started firing on Luke. Bolts rebounded off Leia's lightsabre and hit the men who had fired them. By now, Luke was so emerged in the battle; he didn't notice one single…. Jawa- female Jawa, crouch low behind the crates and rush silently towards the Jedi.

The 'good guys' yelled out words of warning to Luke, but he didn't hear over the noise. By the time he realised something was wrong, it was too late.

The body disintegration bolt had already left the barrel and was speeding towards him, and even his Jedi reflexes couldn't save him.

Luke Skywalker prepared to meet his doom.

**A.N.** **Thorney: Let's** **just get it over and done with, shall we. **

_Sweetdeath04: People from DIFFERENT COUNTRIES can remember, but no! Not my friend and co-author! Everyone remembers except YOU!_

**Thorney: I'm SORRY! I've apologised a hundred times!**

_Sweetdeath04: How could you possibly forget?_

**Thorney: I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY! See, now it's a hundred and three times! I'm hungry!**

_Sweetdeath04: Would you like a piece of birthday cake?_

**Thorney: Yes please! SORRY! 104!**

_Sweetdeath04: In case you haven't guessed, it was my birthday yesterday and Thorney dearest was the ONLY PERSON who FORGOT!_

_Anyway, moving swiftly on, to save Thorney any more embarrassment, this chapter was dedicated to… _

_**Both: QUEEN! The band, not the person, we went to see them a couple of months ago, when we first started writing this chapter, and we said we'd dedicate this to them. **_

**_We've also been informed by Thorney's older sister that the authors notes at the end of each chapter, are funnier than the actual story, which is quite worrying. We'd like to hear YOUR views on this!_**

_**Contact us at the usual address, aka, the review button at the bottom of the screen!**_

**Thorney: Hint hint, nudge nudge!**

**_Sweetdeath04 and Thorney_**


	23. The Final Battle

Disclaimer: Well, if you haven't got the point already, WE DON'T OWN IT!

_**The Final Battle**_

A flash of green, a flurry of fur, and several yells came suddenly to Luke's rescue.

Luke was suddenly pushed violently, without warning away and the blaster bolt hit the blade of Luke's green lightsaber and ricocheted back hitting the jawa right between the eyes.

There was a sudden silence over the battle field, yet again. This time even the corpses seemed to be strangely quiet. Luke stared up at his rescuer.

All our heroes and even some of the bad guys exclaimed his name in one voice- "CHEWIE?"

"RAHHAGH!" this was one pissed off wookiee! He offered Luke a hairy hand/paw and pulled him quickly to his feet.

'_I'm sorry!' _he said, and he meant it. The men and women around them were starting to recover so he added quickly, _'you take it from here then!' _

With that Chewbacca handed Luke his own lightsaber and stood back to the side lines to watch an expert.

Luke had just enough time to take a quick look at both the lightsabers he now carried before he was attacked from all sides. Although he had no idea as he twirled and spun the lightsabers, he was fighting just as his father had done against Count Dooku a long time ago in a galaxy far, far…….well fine it was this galaxy but that's beside the point. Everyone around was left in complete awe but that didn't stop them making their feeble attacks.

Yet again Luke failed to notice something that could have been his undoing. Several of the amateur warriors had broken away from the main group and pulled the Jedi Master's friends back into action. They were hopelessly outnumbered but Luke had a sudden brainwave.

'_Leia,'_ he communicated telepathically with his sister. _'Try and get them all out in the open! I'm gonna finish them all in one move!'_

'_One move?_' Leia though disbelievingly_. 'How are you gonna manage that? You'll never manage it!'_

'_You wanna bet?'_

Even in the heat of the battle Leia smirked at the sibling rivalry. '_Fifty credits.'_

'_Done!'_

Between shots Leia managed to yell the instructions at the non-Jedi group. Apparently they too found them absurd but complied anyway.

Luke bent on one knee and threw up his sabres in the air. As if by magic- or as the 'good guys' knew better, Force Powers- they twirled around each other in a strange sort of dance, cutting each attacker in half one by one before there was anything they could do to stop it.

Luke had the most intense look of concentration because he knew that if he raised his head ever so slightly the injuries could range from decapitation to a really bad hair cut.

The amount of Force Power he was using was quickly draining him but for the rest of them it was an amazing, even beautiful sight. Well, apart from the whole blood, guts and heads flying everywhere, it was beautiful.

As the last person fell, the lightsabers deactivated and fell neatly into Luke' hands. He looked up and in his eyes his friends saw how much the attack had affected him. He was exhausted. He managed to get to his feet wearily but Leia, Han, Chewie, Wedge and Lando saved him the trouble of walking and came to him themselves.

All they could do for a moment was stare at him. It had been an enormous, almost scary display of power.

"Fine!" said Leia in a rather surly voice, breaking the spell, "You win!"

Luke chuckled quietly but didn't say anything.

"WOW!" Wedge suddenly yelled even though Luke was only two feet away, "HOW COOL WAS THAT SPINNY THING, MAN? CAN YOU TEACH ME?"

"SURE WEDGE!" Luke yelled back, thinking that maybe the noise of the battle had made Wedge temporarily hard of hearing.

Luke turned to Chewie, "You…………Have a lot of explaining to do young wookiee!"

Chewie looked down on him with big, baby blue eyes. _'I'm sorry,_' he whimpered sorrowfully. He then continued with one other sentence that everyone- apart from Wedge, who didn't understand- gasped at in disbelief.

"WHAT DID HE SAY! WHAT DID HE SAY!" The noise of Wedge's voice made everyone wince.

Then, in a raised voice, but not raised enough for Wedge's benefit, Han cried, "What do you mean, you were jealous of Lowbacca!"

"WHY ARE YOU WHISPERING?" This was obviously Wedge.

"Chewie," said Luke with exasperation that one might have if a child said he was jealous of his best friend's new speeder, "We love you for who you are. We don't need you to be a Jedi! But you could have cost all of us our lives! I _need_ my lightsaber! It's the only weapon that's really any use to me!"

Lando muttered something about sentimental Jedi's from his place beside Wedge.

Luke put his hand on Chewie's furry forearm and said in a sympathetic tone, "You're always going to be more use to us with a bowcaster than with a lightsaber."

Chewie, who was apparently feeling better already said, _'Well, I did save you're life. I am sorry Luke I didn't know there was going to be a fight-"_

"It's fine," said Luke patted Chewie's arm and smiled, "Just don't do it again."

"WELL AT LEAST NO ONE WAS HURT!" cried Wedge.

**BANG!**

Luke had lost the bet. One man was still alive and kicking and had fired one shot that flew right past Luke's right ear and hit…….Han, directly in the shoulder sending him flying backwards.

Chewie let out an enormous cry leapt into the air and brought his fist down on the top of the man's head knocking him out cold.

Luke and Lando ran to Han and lifted him off the ground, "It's not bad," he mumbled and all could see he was right. The man obviously had not had the blaster on a high enough setting.

"Chewie!" Leia yelled, "Bring him!" she pointed at the man lying at Chewie's feet, "Let's see if he's ready to talk!"

**_A.N. _** We would just like to point out that the title of this chapter has nothing to do with the actual plot, but we just wanted to see how many people would think Luke was dead.

**Thorney: Hellooooo! We are Back in Black people!**

_Sweetdeath04: We're wearing blue actually._

**Thorney: (glares) We have been from one end of the globe to the other but now we are back in good ol' and surprisingly sunny, Northern Ireland!**

_Sweetdeath04: Indeed, the impossible has happened! Now, even though it's the summer, we've been busy. I've been blowing up saucepans on the Duke of Ed._

**Thorney: Trust me; you don't wanna know what I've been doing. **

_**Both: Well, we better leave you to your reading (and reviewing). So go and read another fanfic, or better yet, another one of ours!**_

_**Sweetdeath04, Thorney and Maggie (Thorney's dog)** _


	24. Storytime Children

Disclaimer: we dinnea own noffin so dinnea sue!

**Story Time… Children**

After having carried Han, even though he insisted that he could walk by himself and the limp form of the pirate to the Falcon and having locked the latter in a smuggling compartment with nothing for company apart from an oxygen tank, all settled down for a nice chit-chat.

It turned out that Han was merely singed, but even so, Leia was constantly fussing over him so much so that she forgot to be angry at him as she went to Mother-Hen mode.

"No doubt about it," said Han. "It must have been this Bobby Fett guy." He winced slightly as Leia strapped a cold-pack to his injured shoulder.

Lando, however, wasn't so sure. "They could have been after the Spice. Maybe they thought it was still here. Perhaps the guy that sent them thought I gave him a hard deal."

"Oh yes, and a lowly Spice Trader is going to be able to afford that much man power," said Leia sarcastically, not even looking up, she was so intent upon fixing Han.

Wedge, whose voice had now returned to normal, voiced another query. "But if Fett wants us to follow him, why's he trying to kill us?"

Luke was staring into nothingness. "I don't think he _was_ trying to kill us, at least, not _all_ of us." His voice was mystical and sounded far away even though he was only a few inches from the others.

"Well, whatever he wants done with us, at least we got to see some really cool moves!" Wedge was still not over the glamour of Luke being a Jedi. "By the way, I forgot to mention, purple really goes with your eyes Luke!"

"Oi!" said Luke grinning, coming out of his trance. "You better be careful what you say, or I might tell everyone what our little nickname was for you in the Rogue Squadron- Potato Wedge!"

Wedge looked scandalised. "Why you-"

"Oops!" said Luke, putting his hand over his mouth childishly. "It slipped!"

"I know stuff about you lot too!" Wedge cried triumphantly as the others fell about laughing.

Luke's expression was a fearless one, nothing Wedge could say would shake him.

"You had a nickname too," Wedge said proudly, he almost sang it.

That would shake him. Luke blanched, "NO!" he said louder and quicker than he meant to. Suddenly everyone looked interested and turned to Wedge to hear more.

"Ain't that right?" Wedge continued slyly, "…….Wormy."

"How'd you find that out!" Luke demanded, "They never called me that in the Rogue Squadron!"

"I was friends with Biggs, remember? He often spoke of his little mate Wormy who was back on his home planet."

Leia burst out laughing. Luke's glare chilled her.

"Well, _Princess,_" he stressed the word, "I'm not the only one with a shady past in this room. Or should I say _light_ past. After all, if I recall correctly, you loved playing with fire when you were a little girl."

She gulped loudly and wrung her hands nervously.

"I……I can't think of what you mean," she said in an unintended posh accent. Too posh.

"Let me refresh your memory!" Luke said cruelly, "You were three or four; your dad was holding a dinner party. There were candles on his long table. Don't ask me what you were planning to do with the fire you intended to catch in your hands, stick it in your scrap book or something. You climbed up on the table and accidentally set your hair alight."

Half the room was staring at her in horror, half in amusement.

Lando laughed bitterly. "I knew that fire was dangerous long before I was three!"

Leia made a transformation to the 'Ice Princess'. "Well Lando. How's your girlfriend?"

Lando changed colour quicker than a set of traffic lights on Courascant's airways.

"It was just a normal night," Leia said in a hushed voice one might use when telling a scary story to a group of children. "You were out on the town with a few of the lads. As per usual, you trooped into one of those _seedy_ bars," here she shota glare his way, reminding him of the many times that he had dragged _her_ in after him- namely during the time when Han had been frozen in Carbonite.

"It was around this point, when everyone was still sober enough to remember it, when you were approached by none other than-" She cut herself off for affect.

"A _Hutt_!"

There was a collective gasp around the room.

"She offered you a drink, Lando, and when you blatantly refused, she ran out of the bar in tears!" Lando had now gone a vivid shade of magenta.

"You probably thought that it was over and done with there and then Lando. But the next morning you received a message from none other than Jabba the Hutt himself. It turned out that he was angry at you for turning down his niece, who had been so distraught, was now his nephew!"

Everyone in the room had not been averse to letting out their laughter in loud gales, until now. Many of the room's occupants hadn't known this little fact about Hutts!

Wedge looked ever so slightly disgusted. "Hutt's can do that?" He asked in amazement. When both Leia and Han nodded wickedly, he shuddered. "I've been turned down lodes of times, but it's never inspired me to have a sex change!"

"Well, you aren't a Hutt! And you aren't this particular Hutt. She had been turned down by every species that had ever graced the galaxy with its presence! After that, she was left heartbroken and Lando was left with a bounty on his head."

"_Whoa Lando,"_ Chewie growled, "_That's even worse than that Rodian incident."_

Lando's only reply was a big groan, But after a bit of thinking he came up with a response, "You've never told these guys about your stag night have you?" his voice gained more strength with each word, " After getting ever so slightly drunk, your 'friends' decided to go for something different, rather than the traditional tux. They took a razor to that lovely fur of yours. Malla wasn't too pleased to find that you would be bald for your wedding day."

Under the fur which had obviously grown back, they were pretty sure that Chewie was blushing.

"Come on guys that's enough!" Han said through the pain, "We need to get going."

Luke stood up, still looking as angry as a summer storm. He wasn't happy about the Wormy thing. "Come on, We have an interrogation to attend to. Leia and Wedge, you are with me.

Wedge looked surprised and apprehensive about being asked along but followed orders and got up. Leia had been up long before Luke even started to rise. Han looked disappointed but he reasoned with himself that he couldn't go in his present condition.

Deep below them, in the storage compartments of the _Falcon, _next to a very well concealed pile of spice, the captive groaned and awakened from the stupor caused by Chewie's blow to his head. All he could think in this state of mind was 'I am in deep taun-taun crap.'

**A.N Greetings, earthlings! Take us to your Leader, and then to a good bar. Also give us cookies, SMARTIE cookies! Because our school doesn't have them anymore. **

**We've been planning this chapter for a while, especially the bit with the Hutt so we hope you like it. We dedicate this chapter to _Dog Biscuits_ who gave us the idea of Leia being set on fire.**

**Sorry about the wait but the lives of teenagers are hectic. Happy Halloween for yesterday.**

_**Sweetdeath04 and Thorney**_


	25. Black Iris

_Disclaimer: We don't own it; we thought you'd have got the point by now. However, we do own a certain character that you are about to meet!_

**Black Iris**

"Okay, up you get," Luke's Tone was almost gentle. He and Wedge hauled the man to his feet. They could tell he was dazed, even though they couldn't see his face through the helmet.

'_That must have been one hell of a bump on the head that Chewie gave him to get through to his skull,' _Luke thought.

"Why are you being so 'nice' to him?" Leia hissed, "It's not like he has feelings!"

Luke would have turned around to glare at her but all of a sudden- Whack!

Luke staggered as a fist connected with the side of his head, hard. Shocked and dazed he managed to look up in time to see their captive jump over him and start to sprint off down the corridor, extraordinary quickly.

Luke and Wedge, who had also been floored, both yelled for Leia. But she was already sprinting after him. In what seemed like slow motion she leapt and grabbed the escapee around the knees. He yelled out, and then fell with a resounding crash. But he continued to struggle and kick, as if he was a tiger in chains.

Luke and Wedge were there in a blink of an eye to help Leia and with a lot of trouble managed to get the man back under control…by dragging him down the corridor by his feet.

They pulled him into the boys' room which was out of the way from the rest of the ship, and tied him to a chair using ropes from under Han's bed.

Throughout all of this their captive was struggling so hard anyone who went near him was in danger of a broken nose.

"Okay, okay," Luke's voice was calm and soothing as if he was talking to an over excited horse rather than a human being, "Calm down, we are not going to hurt you."

The man relaxed almost immediately, whether this was because of what Luke said or maybe he was tired, no one knew. Even though he'd stopped thrashing a growl came from under the helmet.

"What Sort of inhumane creature are you?" Leia demanded disgusted.

Luke ever so carefully reached and pulled off, the helmet which the boy was wearing.

What they saw under the helmet made Leia gasp and Wedge took a step back.

The first think they saw were the eyes. They were huge but the worrying thing was that they were black, completely black were the iris should have been. Around his eye lids there seemed to be natural black circles, as if he was wearing heavy black mascara. His eyes stared back at them like two voids of emptiness. Once they got over the eyes, they saw that he was, in fact human. A very pale and sickly looking boy, with very dark hair, but at the roots it was a silvery white. If fell around an almost white, thin face and down to just below his ears. Part of it was drawn into a messy ponytail at the base if his skull

His mouth seemed to be permanently in a slight pout. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, not even an adult, yet he seemed older, even though you knew he couldn't be.

Leia gulped, for a second there, she had found him very, _very _attractive, but then she remembered what was happening before she had lost her stone cold face.

Luke held eye contact with him for about five seconds, before dropping it. Not even a Jedi could look into his eyes for very long.

"Believe it or not," Luke said quietly looking at the floor, "We're going to try and help you." He looked up again and the boy drew back. Suddenly he thrust himself forward with such a force that it seemed mad to Luke! He soon found out why. The boy had made to head butt him, but had resulted in coping the chair over on its side. He let out a grunt of annoyance.

Wedge unwittingly moved forward to hoist the chair plus the boy the right way up again. Grabbing the chair with his right hand he moved his left across the boys face to reach around. It was in that instant that sharp teeth bit down on Wedge's hand and refused to let go, like a dog with its bone.

Luke grabbed the captives jaw and forced it open, relieving the pressure on Wedge's hand.

"Ouch," muttered Wedge, between gritted teeth. He cautiously inspected the bite marks left in the skin.

Luke eyed the boy who was now lamely fighting the bonds that held him on the ground. He decided that using the force might provoke more violence, so he took a different tactic. The one he always used on the twins when they weren't doing what they were told.

"Fine, shall we interview you while you're down there?"

The boy looked up, glaring at Luke. He spoke for the first time, in a surly voice, "I didn't ask you to help me, Jedi."

"So you can get up all by yourself then?" Luke asked, patronizing him.

This time it was the boys turn to drop eye contact, although it might have been that he was hurting his neck looking up at Luke.

"Thought so," said Luke, taking the silence as a no, "Wedge…"

Both men stepped forward and push the chair up, keeping all fingers and arms away from the boy's mouth.

"Okay," said Luke for the seemingly hundredth time, "are you going to talk to us now?"

This time the silence indicated a 'yes'.

"What's your name?" Luke asked pleasantly.

The boy waited for about ten seconds before answering, "Zeke."

"Second name?"

"Depends what you mean," for the first time the boy smiled, it could be compared to the way a crocodile would grin, showing all its teeth in a scary sort of way, "Zeke doesn't have a second name."

'_So now there's a third person?' _Luke asked himself, he was beginning to question the boy's sanity. Could they be dealing with a maniac?

"Zeke isn't my real name," the boy explained, "But it's the name I've always gone by. My real name is…" he trailed off.

The expression on Luke's face was enough to make the boy continue, in a very small voice, "Iris Jaret."

"Ironic name," Leia snorted from the shadows, where she'd been glaring quietly at the group.

Zeke gave her a sarcastic look, "They say whatever happens in the past always comes back to you eventually. In my case it was my name."

Luke changed the subject swiftly; he didn't like the deadly calm in Zeke's voice, "Why are you here?"

"'Cause you brought me here."

Luke resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "What I meant was-"

Zeke cut him off. "I know what you meant. What _I _meant was that I don't wanna tell you!"

Leia took over in a shrill voice, "Why did you shoot my husband!" Her tone was blatantly accusing him.

Zeke blinked before saying in a voice akin to sympathy, "God, Lady! That was your husband? Do I feel sorry for you! Was it an arranged marriage? Come on, you can tell me!"

Wedge snorted with laughter. He forced himself to choke it back when he caught the look in Leia's eyes.

"'Cause it's my job, wench! You know, something that you're paid to do?" the boy continued contemptuously.

Luke thought that maybe, just maybe, they were on a roll. "Who paid you?" he asked sharply.

Zeke grinned at him, "Wouldn't you like to know?" He hacked and sent a glob of spit hurtling into Luke's eye.

Caught by surprise, Luke sprang backwards. No sooner than he had, Zeke was writhing on the floor on his side. This time, all reason had departed him and he was thrashing insanely, yelling words none of them had ever heard before, but they got the idea of what they meant.

For a brief instant, Luke wondered if the boy was possessed! The shouts and screams could have been heard miles away.

Scanning the room, he checked that there was nothing that could be used as a weapon, or could be potentially harmful to Zeke or anyone else.

Leaving Zeke as a lost cause for the mean time, Luke grabbed Leia and Wedge before rushing out of the room and bolting it.

"Luke, what are you doing?" Leia yelled. Even though there was a metal door separating them from the rampaging boy, the sound was still loud and clear. "Leia continued, "Why don't you just use your Force Powers on him?"

Luke held Leia's eye while he spoke firmly. "We are not using the Force on that boy. It looks as if his mind is damaged enough without us tampering in it. Force penetration could wipe everything he knows from him if we went to deep while he's in that condition. We only use the Force as a last resort."

Just as he finished speaking, the floor shook and they heard the rumble of the _Falcon's _engines. But the noise still wasn't enough to drown out Zeke's screams.

The trio jogged to the cockpit where they found Han, happy that his beloved ship was on the move again.

"So," he said, rubbing his hands together in glee, "how'd it go?"

**A.N. **_We have nothing to say. Everything to do._

**_Thorney and Sweetdeath04_**


	26. Sticks and Stones

_Disclaimer: We don't own it; we thought you'd have got the point by now. However, we do own Zeke._

**Sticks and Stones**

Wedge knew that he shouldn't be there. But it was necessary to make Zeke talk, and Luke said that he wasn't going to try again until tomorrow, by then who knows what would have happened. The rescue party was now so far behind the kidnappers that it would be impossible to find them once they reached there destination without help.

It had been a few hours since their dramatic first meeting with Zeke, and Wedge reasoned with himself that was more than enough time to cool down. Plus, Zeke must be getting hungry.

It only made sense to smuggle him something to eat. Of course Wedge hadn't told Luke he was going to see Zeke. He hoped Luke would never find out. He approached the room where Zeke was being kept. There was now no sound coming from behind the door. Wedge gulped he didn't know whether that was a good or bad sign.

Out of habit, he knocked three times on the door.

Iris Jaret was slumped against the wall, completely exhausted from the efforts of escaping from the chair. He had finally managed it by slamming it so hard against the all that it broke, but in the process had caused himself injury. There was a sharp, pencil shaped piece of wood, stuck into his back, and because his hands were still tied he couldn't reach it to pull it out. It was very deep, but not fatally, and was a safe distance from his spine. There was a trickle of blood flowing down onto the floor.

Zeke couldn't feel the pain anymore. He had had worse in any case, and there was no way he was going to call for help.

Suddenly, out of the silence there were three sharp raps on the door. Zeke looked up, perplexed. Should he say come in? He decided they probably would anyway.

He was right. The door creaked slowly open and one of his interrogators from earlier stepped cautiously in the room.

Zeke almost smiled, as he brought two memories back out of the blurred haze that was his mind. One was, _'Hey that's the guy I sank my teeth into…'_ and the other was _'At least that guy can take a joke, he laughed when I tried to be flippant.'_

There was an awkward silence, in which Wedge started at the ground and Zeke kept his eyes fixed on the tray that Wedge was carrying.

Finally Wedge spoke, "Hungry?" He looked up. Yet again he was taken completely by surprise and stepped backwards.

Zeke was confused, what had he done now? Had his visitor noticed the pool of blood? No it could be, he was at the wrong angle. Then he realised…his eyes must have changed.

Indeed they had, the black had melted away to reveal shocking lizard green, once again however there were no pupils, just one enormous Iris.

"Don't worry about it," he rasped, "They've changed because I'm calm now. Let me guess they're green right?"

Recovering from the shock, Wedge walked forward and put the tray down in front of Zeke, "Your eyes change colour?"

Zeke nodded, "Depends on my mood," he explained, "Sometimes, they're blue, sometimes they're red or green or black…they've been black a lot recently."

Another silence set in between the two. This time it was Zeke's turn to break it.

"Is that for me?" he nodded towards the bowl of stew that Wedge had brought.

Wedge kneeled down in front of Zeke and nodded. Zeke dipped the tips of his fingers into the stew and sniffed it, "What poison did you use? Rat?"

Wedge grinned, "No, Lando made it. That should be poison enough."

Despite not knowing who this Lando was, Zeke couldn't help but grin.

Zeke leaned forward to pull the bowl closer. As he did so, Wedge let out a gasp and said without thinking, "What have you done to yourself?"

"Hey! It wasn't me who tied myself to the chair!" Zeke growled. Wedge watched closely as Zeke's eyes turned a darker shade of green.

"Alright, alright! Calm down!" Wedge got up, "I'd better go get Luke. He'll sort-"

"NO!" Zeke yelled so loudly, Wedge jumped a foot in the air.

Zeke's shout was followed by another string of the same curses he had used earlier, except this time Wedge caught the word 'Jedi' among the muttered swearing.

Wedge shook his head in exasperation, knowing that Zeke would never ask for help. "Do you need a hand taking it out?" He gestured at the chunk of wood. Zeke held up his bound hands in reply.

Wedge sighed, he hadn't done anything like this in a long time, "Okay, come away from the wall."

Zeke struggled away from the wall, and Wedge walked up to him, "I'm going to untie you, but remember you're on a ship in the middle of space. There is no where to run except out the air lock, and I seriously doubt you'd get that far. Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah," Zeke grumbled as he held out his hands again to Wedge, who untied them carefully. Zeke flexed his fingers and wrists. For a spilt second, Wedge thought he was going to run, until Zeke got onto all fours and said, "Ready."

Wedge smiled again, "No you're not, take off your jacket, we don't want any fabric in the wound, and put this between your teeth," he was about to hand Zeke a butter knife but thought better of it, Zeke seemed like one of these people who could kill anyone with anything. Best not to give him ideas. So instead he handed the boy a spoon.

All Zeke did was look at it, "What's that for?"

"You'll see. Put it in your mouth, please."

Zeke did as he was told. He took of his jacket and got on hands and knees again.

Wedge came to his side, "Brace yourself, one, two, three!" As Wedge said three, Zeke realised what the spoon was for. He was clamping his teeth down on it even harder than he did on Wedge's hand. The pain was intense; there were no other words for it. Finally after what seemed like an age, there was a clatter as the wood fell to the ground.

Zeke's body went limp, and he found himself breathing heavily. His vision was blurry but he could hear Wedge ripping up what he assumed was a bed sheet for bandages.

"So," Zeke gasped. "I can't go forever by calling you, 'The Dude who Ripped a Piece of Wood outta my Spine.' What's your name?"

Wedge was once again in Zeke's realm of vision. He was considering introducing himself formally, as General, but instead went for a more casual approach. "I'm Wedge."

Zeke cracked a grin. "Wedge? As in Potato Wedge?"

The older man groaned. How was it possible for this to be mentioned twice in the same day? He retorted in a bored voice, "At least I don't have a girl's name- Iris!"

As soon as he said it, Wedge regretted it. But Zeke didn't seem angry, just surprised. It had been a long time since he had been in a conversation like this. Yet Wedge still felt the need to make up for his mistake.

"Yeah, they called me Potato Wedge a while back in the Rogue Squadron. It was a bit of a legend for a-" He was interrupted.

"Hang on! Did you- did you say, 'Rogue Squadron'?" Zeke stared intently.

"Yeah. I'm actually General Wedge. Rouge Leader and all that!" Hey, it had been a long time since Wedge had got to boast about his position! It was nice to have a captivated audience. Zeke's mouth had opened in awe.

"You're kidding, right?" he asked, somewhat hoarsely.

Wedge lapped up the attention. "Nope! Why are you so interested anyway?"

Wedge would have sworn that his young friend jumped a foot in the air as he turned away quickly. "Oh! No reason!"

Rouge Leader, however, thought that there was a perfectly good reason. "You know, we're always looking for good pilots. If you know any, that is." He was smirking and Zeke caught it.

Both burst out into full blown gales of laughter.

"I couldn't fly a ship to save my life! Besides, I doubt that even the Rogue Squadron would take on full time psychopathic maniacs!" Wedge shot him an odd look. "Hey, I know you were all thinking it!"

Wedge gave a small smile. "Well, you did give us a pretty good reason."

His companion looked at the floor. "How's your hand?"

Taking this as the closest thing to an apology as he'd get, Wedge replied, "Sore, but I think I'll live." He glanced down at the rings of teeth marks.

"How's the guy I shot?" Zeke looked genially concerned.

Wedge started to say he was fine but before he could get it out Zeke exclaimed, "Oh God he's dead isn't he!"

This time Wedge didn't know whether he was joking or not, "No he's alive, but you probably won't be by the time that his wife gets her hands on you."

The corner of Zeke's mouth twitched, "Cow."

Wedge blinked, "That's royalty you're talking about there boy," he warned.

Zeke looked at him and said very deliberately, "COW."

Wedge shook his head, "She's not so bad, honestly."

Zeke grumbled something inaudible, and Wedge decided to change the subject of Leia.

"So…Where are you from? Corellia? Tatooine? Hoth? Are you a wompa?"

Now Zeke was starting at Wedge as if he was insane, "Coruscant, actually."

"How'd you get mixed up with Bobby Fett's guys then?"

"I needed the money. But Fett? Never met him, I only had dealing with Dengar. Apparently Fett doesn't like-" he cut himself off and suddenly looked embarrassed.

"He doesn't like what?" Wedge asked, quietly.

The twitch at the corner of Zeke's mouth came back but this time more violently. The whole mood in the room had changed dramatically in just a few seconds. You could almost have cut the tension with the butter knife.

Zeke's eyes started to turn red, but seemed to only get half way and therefore stopping at pink. He was nervous. Fidgeting slightly he said, "Doesn't matter."

"Anything you can tell us matters," Wedge said, trying the press him on. Zeke had started drumming his fingers on the floor and tapping his foot very quickly. Wedge noticed beads of sweat on his brow. He looked extremely worried.

"Are you alright?" Wedge asked getting concerned. It looked like the start of some kind of fit.

"Fine…Fine, I'm great, couldn't be better, nothing wrong with me…" he said all this very quickly.

"I really think I should get Luke," Wedge said carefully, "It could be your wound, it might be infected."

"It's not….I'm good," Zeke looked away, speaking through his teeth, "I'd like…to be on my….own now…"

Wedge didn't need telling twice, it wasn't a very comfortable situation. When the door was once again locked Wedge started to head back to where the others were. As he was leaving he heard Zeke scream from inside the room.

Right that was it. He was getting Luke. He sprinted into the lounge and yelled. "Luke, I don't care what you say, that boy is definitely not human!"

**A.N **_Hello we're back for our third chapter in two days! COOL!_

_WE ROCK!_

_Sweetdeath04: So Thorney, recovered from your incident with the chair yet?_

**Thorney: Yeah, we forgot to tell you about this last chapter. In order to get the description right on how Wedge helped Zeke up, I tied myself to a chair and got Sweetdeath04 to push me over. No joke! We actually did this!**

_Sweetdeath04: It just goes to show how much we care about you people! (Though Thorney strapped to a chair lying helpless on the floor was a very funny sight!)_

**Thorney: Funny for you, maybe! Next time we'll tie you to the chair!**

_By the way, we absolutely love Zeke, so we hope you do too!_

_**Sweetdeath04 and Thorney**_


	27. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Disclaimer: Don't own it! All we own is Zeke so please don't try to take him- or we may be forced to kill you. No threat intended!

**Are you thinking what I'm thinking?**

The room was filled with a slightly hostile silence as Wedge told his story to the rest of the group. He could tell they (especially Luke and Leia) were disappointed with him, but as he protested, leaving a seemingly mentally deranged youth in a room overnight would not have been the best idea, particularly if you wanted him to talk, which in a way Wedge had achieved.

"Still shouldn't have done it mate," Han said with an air of sympathy. He was looking much better. He wasn't pale anymore and he had changed his shirt so he no longer carried a burn mark. However he was now complaining about the blast ruining his favourite jacket.

Wedge looked at Han for a moment before remembering, "he checked to make sure you were okay, Han. He seemed concerned about it."

"Sure he was" said Leia, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"He thought he'd killed Han," Wedge said in an off handed voice.

"I'm made of stronger stuff than that," Han snorted, "What, does he think I'm some old man or something?"

Everyone looked at him. There was no need to describe the expression on each face. Luke quickly changed the subject. He had been silent up until then and had contented himself to giving Wedge the frowning of a life time.

"Well, what happened next, Wedge?"

"The twitching got worse, and he just looked really ill. He was tapping the ground like he was nervous. I thought it was the cut but he seemed to be recovering well and quickly from it. He couldn't have just been worried. He's not the type to scare easily."

"So, cold sweating, twitching, tapping hands and feet, nervousness, changing eye colour, and greying hair…any flu like symptoms?" Lando asked, as if he was a GP not a con artist.

Wedge shook his head and Lando said, "Not that far in yet, then…"

Han looked at him sharply, "Are thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked, a hint of anxiety in his voice.

"I think so," Lando asked shaking his head sadly, "We've bitten off more than we can chew with this one. And he's only a teenager. Shame."

Leia was studying them both carefully, "Are you two thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked.

They both looked at her with a serious expression which confirmed that she was indeed thinking what they were thinking. She wasn't completely oblivious, after all she had been married to Han for years.

"If you lot are all thinking the same thing I'm thinking," Luke said, smiling slightly, "we are in big trouble."

"I've got a pretty good idea too, but a confirmation would be nice," Wedge said slowly.

Everyone looked at each other and said it as one, "Drug addict."

"Withdrawal," Han said sadly, "Makes the best, and breaks the rest."

"Zeke?" Wedge stuck his head around the door, "Zeke, I've come to…to…give you the grand tour of the ship I suppose."

Wedge had been uncertain about going back into the room again, but Luke had thought it better to send a familiar face. Besides Chewie was standing outside the door if things got of hand.

Zeke dragged himself to his feet. He looked dreadful. He took a few steps toward the door before almost collapsing. He managed to grab the wall in time and struggled to the door, where Wedge was waiting and watching. Zeke looked hopelessly pathetic.

"You give the tour to all your prisoners do you?" he asked, a hint of his other, more docile, personality showing through.

Wedge attempted to lighten his own mood, after the discovery of Zeke's drug addiction, he felt sorry for the kid. "Yeah, it comes along with the bed and breakfast charge," he said jokingly. "Mind you, you'll have to pay extra for pool privileges."

"Is there a sauna?" Zeke inquired, carrying on the joke.

"Well, Leia's got her own personal one, but I wouldn't go in there if I were you. She might feed you to Chewie!"

This voice wasn't Wedge's, but one that Zeke didn't recognise. From behind him, Chewie growled pleasantly at the mention of his name, but Zeke was more interested in the new appearance.

"Lando Calrissian, at your service." He gave a small bow before continuing, "I would kiss you, but you're not really my type!"

Even though the man had only said about three sentences, Zeke was positive that he would get along fine with this man.

Wedge smiled at the relaxed surroundings before saying gently, "Come on, Luke's expecting us."

At the mention of the Jedi Master, Zeke's grey eyes received a tinge of pink. Both older men noticed but discarded it. It wasn't up to them to change his opinion. That was something that would have happen in time.

**A.N.**_ We know that this is a short chapter, but we think we deserve one. After all, we've been up all night playing Star Wars Top Trumps._

**Thorney: In which Luke kept coming back to my rescue and to kick Sweetdeath04's ass!**

_Sweetdeath04: Indeed, considering that I won all three games (they lasted a long time) and that I've never played before!_

**Thorney: I taught you well. Luke Skywalker, class card! We got extra points if we got a card that was the member of 'The Sabacc Gang'. Luke, Han, Leia, Lando, Wedge, Chewie and someone else… who you will find out at the end of this fic! **

_But that seems to be getting further and further away so prepare for a long haul guys!_

_By the way, thank you to everyone who reviewed! We now have 100! Keep reading and reviewing and remember to tell your friends about Sabacc!_

**_Sweetdeath04 and Thorney_**


	28. Formal Introductions

Disclaimer: we don't own anything except Zeke. Got it?

**Formal Introductions**

"Hey Zeke," Luke said, trying to sound friendly, but this was difficult. He was faced with a shirtless, drug addict teenager who had been working for the man who had kidnapped two members of his family, shot his brother in law and generally disliked him. Zeke looked like he could spit venom. His eyes were blood red and almost glowing with hatred for the Jedi.

Luke had prepared the room for a special type of interrogation tactic. All the seats were arranged in a circle so no one, not just Zeke could hide. Everyone else was taking their seats, but Zeke was still standing in the middle of the room. They were taking a gamble, hoping that if they left him unbound that he wouldn't run off.

"Do you want to sit down?" Luke asked him gently.

Feeling as if he didn't have a choice in the matter, Zeke took the seat next to Wedge. Wedge felt slightly touched at the small gesture.

Luke sighed and began, "Zeke, we need to find the people who hired you, and for that your help is necessary. If you help us then we can offer you two things… freedom and help."

Zeke twitched, and Wedge's senses sharpened just in case.

"Help?" the boys voice was high pitched and he had begun to tap the side of his chair, "I don't' need help!"

It was obvious he wasn't going to co-operate. Especially not with Luke. Wedge decided to take over.

"Zeke, when was the last time you had a fix?"

Zeke froze. He didn't even twitch or tap. "How… how did you figure it out?" He turned on Luke, "Did you go into my mind, _Jedi!"_ His voice filled with contempt.

Luke watched him, taking in every detail. "Nope," he said simply, then looked around at everyone else,

Wedge put a warning hand on Zeke's forearm and the boy looked down, as though he were considering biting it again.

"Oh yeah? So then how'd you come to that conclusion?" Zeke asked sarcastically, as though he didn't believe a word that was said.

Despite the tension, Han smirked. "You have no idea who we are kid, so you?"

Zeke rolled his eyes and said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "Of course I do! You're the guy I shot- sorry about that! I was aiming for Goldilocks-" he jerked a thumb in Luke's direction, and indeed his hair was shining like gold in the light of the _Falcon_, "-but he moved."

Luke ignored the insult, if it was an insult. "Well, maybe finding out who we all are would be a good place to start then."

"This is starting to sound like a meeting of 'Drug Addicts Anonymous,'" complained Zeke.

Wedge sighed, for what seemed the hundredth time. This trip was starting to seem more depressing than he had originally hoped. He had thought it would be a rescue mission like the good ol' days. No chance of that! They were now sitting in a circle like a bunch of 'happy clappers'. "We're trying to help, Zeke. You're not helping."

"Yeah, well, guess what! Neither are you! If you're so interested, Here's who I am!" He sprang up before Wedge could stop him, "Zeke Jaret! Junkie and full time brat, with no respect for your precious New Republic! I hate your religion Skywalker, if it weren't for the Jedi the Imperials would never have come into power in the first place!"

Luke sat there calmly, taking the abuse with ease. He waited until Zeke had finished, before smiling, "Thank you for your opinion Zeke."

Zeke was about to blow up again but when he heard Luke's calm reply he stood startled.

"What?" he said confused, "why aren't you yelling at me?" he suddenly seemed younger, "Didn't you hear, I said the Jedi are a bunch of stupid gits!"

Luke said simply, "I don't think you deserve to be yelled at."

Zeke didn't know what to say, and sometimes when you don't know what to say it's best to keep quiet. Which is what Zeke did. He stood there with his mouth open waiting for someone to complete a sentence for him.

Finally he turned around and sat down again. Blinked twice and acted as if nothing had happened. Was that embarrassment?

Lando decided to come to his rescue, "Lando Calrissian, con artist extraordinaire, dealer in any substance under the suns," he said without thinking. He received a glare from both Luke and Leia.

However this answered Zeke's questions on how they had recognised the signs of withdrawal, "Ahhhh." He didn't need to explain why he'd said it.

"Han Solo, smuggler, pirate, crook and devoted father and husband," Han said, trying to be sweet and caring but at the back on his mind he heard Leia's voice:

'_Shove it!'_

Chewie growled and Han translated for Wedge and Zeke, "Chewbacca, furry friend and co-pilot."

Wedge grinned, he knew it was his turn, "General Wedge Antilles, Leader of Rogue Squadron, kidnapper of Princesses and whacker of oil pipes."

Zeke looked very curious at this. "I'll tell you later," Lando hissed.

Luke decided to use this as his opportunity to break through to Zeke's level. "Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master and eligible bachelor-"

To everyone's amazement, Zeke snorted with laughter and a proper grin broke out onto his face.

"You wouldn't happen to know any women who'd be interested, would you?" Luke asked jovially. He knew that Zeke wasn't really the full time brat he claimed to be, he was just looking for something to use as a weapon. He was just a troubled kid.

Zeke looked around the circle, "You're all crazy, mad, you're all nuts! I've been in a room with people high on about eight different types of spice and they were all saner than you!" His tone changed so suddenly it took the listeners time to adjust, "Why are you lot bothering with this?"

Leia coughed slightly then spoke out for the first time, "Because I want my kids back, and you know where they are."

Zeke glared and spoke to her with a hostile attitude, "Yeah, well that's none of my concern! I don't know anything about any kids!" He looked around at the rest of them. "An' why are you lot going after my 'employer'? He didn't tell us why we had to kill you, only that we had to do it." His last comment was directed at Luke.

All the time his iris's had been changing colour rapidly.

The whole room lapsed into silence while each person thought about the information they had just received.

"You mean," Han started after several moments, "that you have no idea why you were employed?"

Zeke shrugged. "No, why would I be interested? It was a good offer for money-" he paused, then figured that it was safe to continue, "-and I needed money for drugs. I never met Bobby Fett. I was the only one who never did because he hated my little hobby so much. He wouldn't let me within twenty feet of his ship let alone himself!a"

Lando cut in before anyone had a chance, "I'll explain later, point is we just need you to tell us where you were supposed to meet up again after you killed Luke. Once you've helped us, we can help you. Sort you out and get you back on the right track."

"How can I be sure you'll help me?"

Luke stared at the boy then answered, "You can't. But you'll have to trust us."

Zeke's eyes where changing colour again but this time they kept changing to every colour you could imagine.

Suddenly he smiled, "No more tying me to chairs, and we've got a deal."

Zeke had indeed given them the co-ordinates and now everyone was going off working, trying to make the _Falcon_ go as fast as it possibly could.

Leia was left tidying away the chairs, which, as Luke had jokingly told her, _was a very important job_. Needless to say, she did have some very important work to do after this, but no matter what, she just couldn't concentrate on it right now.

Luke may have been able to brush off Zeke's comments on the New Republic and the Jedi Order but she had taken them to heart. In fact, she was taking anything that Zeke was involved in to heart. She hated the way that everyone was trying to give him a chance, except her. She hated his presence on the ship. But most of all, she hated the monster that had stolen away her children.

If it hadn't been for them she could be sitting at home reading a story to Jaina and Jacen with Han by her side, Chewie in the kitchen cooking dinner, Luke upstairs in his library reading some manuscript that he had been longing for and Lando on the com link just to tell them that he was looking forward to the next time he would see them. Wedge would be… well, Wedge would most likely be flying some suicidal mission just for the fun of it, completely in his element. And Zeke would be rotting in his drug den where he belonged.

Leia brought herself back to reality by cursing herself for thinking such thoughts about another living creature, but still, she couldn't help it.

Thinking back to everything said at the 'meeting' she said, more to herself than to anyone else, "Leia Organa Solo," she blinked back tears, "distraught and heartbroken mother."

No one was supposed to hear her, but from around the corner, one person did. And that one person was forced to blink a tear out of a multicoloured eye.

**A.N. **_We know that this chapter seems kind of pointless but it's necessary. Sorry if it we bored you but the next chapter will be light hearted and full of fun! Apart from the first bit… which should be sweet!_

_Please read and review!_

_**Thorney and Sweetdeath04** _


	29. Chemical Reaction

Disclaimer: we don't own anything except Zeke. Got it?

**Chemical reaction**

Jaina stirred from her deep, unnatural sleep.

"Jacen?" she said, even though she was half asleep, she knew her brother was around.

Jacen, just let out a muffled noise which could have been a 'yes'.

"I had a dream," Jaina said, in a happy voice, brought on by the sedatives that the kidnappers had given them, "Daddy, Mommy and Uncle Lukie where coming to save us…" she shuffled closer to her brother, "Mommy is mad at Daddy again," she said falling asleep again.

Before Jacen fell back to his dreams he murmured, "He must have left the milk out again…"

"So then, despite our advice, he goes and hits the pipe…with a hammer. Oil goes everywhere all over this wonderful ship, which was once mine and still should be by rights!"

"It was an experiment!" Wedge groaned, head in his hands. He was wondering how many times he would have to hear this before he lived it down. As long as Janson and Hobbie didn't know everything was fine. But, he knew it wouldn't be long until they were informed.

"And this," Lando continued, "Is the man, that you let pull a chunk of wood out of your spine!"

"It wasn't his spine, just his back!"

At this moment in time, Zeke was lying face down on the medical bed of the _Falcon_ wondering why on earth he got landed, hitching a ride with a group of maniacs. Lando had turned GP again and was sewing up the injury in his back while telling all the stories he had promised to tell. Zeke's face was buried in his arms but he was grinning all the while. He was actually enjoying their company, though it would be a while before he would admit it to anyone.

Suddenly Zeke stuck out a hand and brandished a piece of bloody material in Wedge's face, "I need to talk to you about this Antilles! I didn't see what you ripped up for bandages when I was bleeding until you had left. Next time use your own clothes instead of mine!" True enough, Wedge had used the jacket the boy had been wearing as the dressing for the cut, "I Liked that jacket," Zeke said with fake emotion in his voice, "it was worth a lot to me! Sentimental value and all that!"

"What have you been teaching him?" Wedge demanded of Lando, "he sounds like you!"

"A lot General! A lot!" said Lando as he finished sewing up Zeke.

"Careful Baron! I could have you arrested for less than that!"

"Like to see you try!"

"I don't know who to fight for," Zeke sneered, his expression matching his voice.

It seemed like an odd comment to Wedge and Lando, but in the last few hours they had spent all of their time with Zeke and even in that short space of time learned that he was a very odd person.

Zeke spoke again, "My throat hurts."

Lando cut the thread. Looking concerned he placed a hand on Zeke's forehead. Zeke seemed alarmed.

"He's checking your temperature," Wedge said soothingly.

"Yeah," Lando said, removing his hand, "You're getting the flu…or not as the case is. It's part of your withdrawal. You didn't answer Wedge earlier. When did you have your last fix?"

Zeke shrugged. Even though Lando had finished he remained lying down, "Yesterday? I dunno it's a bit of a blur…"

"What did you take when you were on a trip?" Wedge asked now he was answering questions about the drugs.

"Anything and everything. I don't even know the names on most of them. Whatever I could get. All I know is that before I started my eyes were always green and my hair was black."

Lando inspected him pensively. "Your eyes and hair changing colour are the effects of mixing and matching with drugs. I'd say that you are the unique conclusion to one big chemical reaction."

Zeke looked around at him. "So basically I belong in a science lab. Whoooo for me! I feel like I've been bred in a test tube!" Sarcasm dripped off his voice and onto the floor like the oil from Wedge's experiment.

Lando smiled, "Well, your eyes and hair aren't actually doing you damage, so it could be worse. They're permanent but you could dye your hair and wear contacts if you feel uncomfortable with it." He inspected the tests he ran on the _Falcon's_ medical computers. "However, I hate to tell you this but your insides are as messy as the inside of the _Falcon_," he suddenly went serious, "but it's no damage beyond repair. I've seen lots of people come back from worse than this. If you stop now, you can save yourself. By these readings you must have been pretty heavy, so you're gonna have a rough night or two." Lando shot him a grin again, "But nothing you can't handle!"

He could tell Zeke wasn't so sure. "I once went a week without a fix. It almost killed me!"

Lando frowned, "Well, we're your temporary babysitters for this. You're only going off this in small doses until you get to a stand still. We've offered you help to do it right, and besides, the women always love a strong man!"

Wedge was studying Lando with a worried expression. "Are you sick? 'cause that's some of the smartest stuff that you've ever said Calrissian!"

Lando produced that winning smile. "There's more to me than good looks mate!"

Wedge and Zeke were preparing to create chaos on board the Falcon but Lando had a more important job to do.

He was slowly and quietly hauling that carefully disguised spice from the storage compartments to the air lock of the _Falcon_. After all the threats of throwing something or someone out of it, it was finally being put to good use.

Meeting Zeke had made Lando realize that spice wasn't always as good as it seemed. It just wasn't the sort of stuff that should be traded on a rescue mission after so much had gone wrong with it. It could be dangerous to have it on board along with Zeke. You never know, Lando mused, some day he might even reach the levels of their deceased arch nemesis, Boba Fett, who had hated anything to do with the stuff, and the fact that he and Han had traded it only gave the late Bounty Hunter a reason to hate them more.

But that wouldn't be for a long time yet.

As Lando prepared to shove the last crate out the air lock, Han Solo rounded the corner on the way to the cockpit.

Han froze. Lando froze. The pair stared at each other for about a minute. Han turned around and walked back up the corridor. As he came towards Lando again he nodded politely at him.

The crate was gone and Lando was standing ever so inconspicuously beside the air lock whistling to himself.

"Lando…" Han said shaking his head. Then he promptly tackled him until Lando was caught in a head lock. Using all the strength he possessed he rubbed his knuckles into the con's head.

The message was clear. "Never bring that stuff on _my_ ship again!"

Lando was having trouble breathing and could only produce a small noise. Han took it as, 'yes sir' before letting him go and continuing to the cockpit.

**A.N Thorney: Once again we are in a car, in the middle of he night, in the middle of somewhere.**

_Warning: the next chapter we be long. We have 5 major thing that have to happen between now and the end of the fic and our Jedi senses are telling us that the end is near. Although that's what we have been saying for the last year. Honestly._

_Sweetdeath04: We will see you as soon as possible. Half term is now unfortunately over so no more writing for at least a week. We done more work in the past few days than we have in months and for the long wait we apologize again and hoped that these chapters and Zeke were worth it._

_See you soon…_

_**Sweetdeath04 and Thorney**_


	30. Good Times

Disclaimer: We don't own anything except Zeke. Got it?

**Good Times**

Luke was exhausted. What with fighting pirates, rescuing demented teens and dealing with distraught siblings, it was a long day. And even Jedi need their sleep!

As he reached his room he shut his door and collapsed onto his bed in weariness. He had intended to get a good sleep in a nice soft bed… but instead he received something sharp poking into his side.

Rolling over, he dug into his pocket and wrenched the offending item into his field of view.

He had almost forgotten, well he had forgotten. When he had dug his hand into the small pouch on the lid of the chest he had been searching through he hadn't bothered looking at what he had retrieved. And what with the excitement of nearly being killed a couple of times and with nothing better to do, well it was an excuse to be nosy once in a while.

Luke stared at the holo-cube in his hand. If the small item which had caused him pain belonged to his brother-in-law, he wasn't sure he wanted to know what was in it- but then again, it _was_ from the mysterious past of the infamous Han Solo. Curiosity took over.

Luke went to the table and placed the cube on its surface. He pressed the button that activated it and stepped back to watch.

His first impression was: _'This is old…'_

His second was,_ 'Oh, crap.' _

The film quality was poor; it was fuzzy and unclear in places. The subject of the film also betrayed its age. A very youthful looking Han was in shot, grinning and posing for the camera while a younger Leia in a wedding dress smiled and laughed at him. Suddenly, Luke saw himself trying to sneak into frame. The real Luke smiled, he had arrived late for Han and Leia's wedding. If anything in the old Jedi knights code had said anything like 'A Jedi must be punctual and regular,' he had broken it long ago.

Suddenly the wedding scene vanished to be replaced by Leia sitting in bed, dressed in Pyjamas and holding two new born babies, one in each arm. She was smiling down at them and watched them drool on her. Luke heard Han's faint voice and assumed he was out of shot somewhere, most likely calling people to tell them about the arrival of his children. From what Luke could hear, he sounded ecstatic.

The image blurred and disappeared, to be replaced by the Solos back garden and a bright sunny day. This one was more recent. Jaina and Jacen were running around in their swimming costumes chasing bugs no doubt. The camera moved sideways and Leia came into view. She was lying on a sun bed in a skimpy bikini catching rays. She had a thick green face mask on and cucumber slices over her eyes. Luke snorted with laughter at her ludicrous appearance. She clearly didn't know that the film was being shot or she would never have allowed herself to be filmed looking the way she did.

Han was trying to teach Anakin how to sit up long enough to play 'Dissection', on the grass, in the shade beside the tall fence that surrounded the small lawn. Chewie was walking around the perimeter trying to spy on the neighbours. There was shouting from the other side of the fence and Luke was sure he heard the words, 'overgrown dog!' being used.

The last thing he saw before the picture blurred out for the last time was twins sneaking up behind the wookiee with a garden hose pipe clasped between their small hands, and then the water squirting out the end. Even after the picture was gone Luke could still hear the sound of Chewie's roars and Jaina and Jacen's childish shrieks.

And that appeared to be the last of the holo-vids. Luke sighed, ah the good old days, when Leia didn't shout, the kids didn't complain and Han acted like a grown up. He grinned and reasoned with himself.

Maybe these days were better than the old ones.

"Hey Han! Can I call you Han?"

"No," said Han, looking up at the stick-insect-like teenager.

Zeke flashed a grin, "Too bad, I'm calling you Han anyway!" Despite his valour, he approached the Captain cautiously. He didn't want to seem too annoying, right?

Surprisingly, Han was the first to start the conversation. "How you feeling?"

"I've been better," Zeke took a step forward, "Lando says that I'll feel like I have the flu for a while…"

Han nodded, "I've seen it all before."

Zeke didn't answer, anxious to get off the subject.

Han could tell that if he didn't say anything there would be an awkward silence so he went to the point "Was there something you wanted?"

If he had wanted to destroy the awkwardness he had failed miserably. As soon as he asked, he could tell he had made Zeke feel slightly more uncomfortable. But the boy was brave enough to ask…

"CanitakealookattheFalcon'scontrols?" he said extremely quickly and nervously. Han gave him a surprised look.

"Say that again, a bit slower and…slower."

Zeke took a deep breath and started again, "Can-I-Take-A-Look-At-The-Falcon's-Controls… Please!" he added as an afterthought.

Before Han could answer the boy was off, "I'm really interested in flying but this is only my second time in space! I've only ever been on two starships and this is one of them. In the briefing for this mission, well I wasn't really listening, but I did hear that the _Falcon_ is specially modified! It's not like I want to fly the ship I just want to take a look around! Wedge said you never let anyone else drive it not even him and he told me that he's one of the best pilots in the Galaxy!"

Han rolled his eyes, that sounded like Wedge alright.

"And…"Zeke had been about to continue when Han interrupted.

"Slow down kid! We may be in space but you still need to breathe up here!"

Zeke came to a complete halt and sure enough he was panting slightly. Then:

"Please," he tried once more, so quietly that Han wasn't sure that he heard it.

Han creased his brow. Was it a wise idea to let this kid near the controls of his beloved _Falcon_? Wedge and Lando seemed to trust him- though that wasn't much to go on.

But Luke- the Jedi Master who could poke around in peoples minds if he felt the need, trusted Zeke as well and who was Han to judge?

"Okay… but on one condition!" Han stated.

"Yeh…?"

Han stared him down, "You must tell me the truth."

Despite the nervousness at being asked such a question- for he didn't even know what truth he needed to tell- Zeke wasn't going to be belittled by Han, so to raise himself to Han's eye level he did the only thing possible. He stood on his toes.

Han noticed but didn't say anything. He also took note of the dark blue eye colour which had come into place.

"You must tell me… have you been sent here as an evil minion, by Wedge and Lando as part of their dastardly plan to steal the _Falcon_?"

**A.N. **_Yo! We're back! _

_Audience boos. Apparently we've come back too many times!_

_Naturally we'd like to thank all our reviewers!_

**Thorney: You all smell great!**

_Sweetdeath04: Stares but then continues as if Thorney didn't say anything_

_We'd also like to thank you for speculating. We love seeing what you lot out there think is going on. Keep guessing, you maybe close…or not so close..._

**Thorney: Or miles away which is where you are.**

_Sweetdeath04: SHHHHH! Don't tell them that!_

**Thorney: for the first time in the history of our writing partnership we had an…argument today. I blame MistyRiver who is here with us.**

_Sweetdeath04: Thing is I can't even remember what it was about. All I remember was three people yelling at each other._

**Thorney: Good Times! I can't remember what it was about either but it was a good way of saying that MR was here.**

_**Thorney and Sweetdeath04**_


	31. Nitroglycerine

Disclaimer: Zeke is ours but everything else belongs to whoever it belongs to.

**Nitro-glycerine**

"Ah, Leia! Just the woman I was looking for!"

Unlike Luke, Leia was in a less than jovial state. She was sitting in the lounge staring, or rather glaring, at a small, solid, durable object, willing it to move. Unfortunately, she was having no such luck.

"Still can't do it Luke." She looked up at him. "It's still not getting any easier Luke! I thought you said that it would!" Her voice held the slightest tone of accusation.

"It will," Luke said with the utmost certainty. "You just have to give it time, that's all! You, of all people should know that everything takes time!"

Leia gave him a long, hard glare. "Don't patronise me, little brother."

The fact that she was using an old joke was a bit of an upside to the situation at least, Luke considered. However, he changed the subject before Leia could carry on _insulting_ him any more.

"I found this," he said, handing her the holo-cube. "It's Hans. I think you might want to watch it."

Leia took it, turning it over in her hands cautiously. "Hans? Why would I want to watch something of Hans?" Her words only served as a reminder that their fight had yet to be resolved.

"I think it might help," Luke continued unconvincingly. "What harm could it do?"

"Probably quite a bit to my sanity!" Leia retorted, but her brother could tell that she was joking. He knew she'd think about it. She just wasn't sure yet.

He could understand. But still, he really hoped that Leia would find the time to watch it, and forgive Han.

"And this here, it tells me when I'm gonna arrive at where I'm going to."

"Wow!" Zeke continued to stare at the control panel, "how does it do that?"

"Well…" Han didn't want to look stupid in front of Zeke, but he didn't know the answer to the youth's question, "Um…there are these…microscopic aliens that…um, live inside the hyperdrive…with measuring tapes and they tell me how far away we are…using their measuring tapes…."

"Yuh huh? Really!" said Zeke the sarcasm was so solid, he could have hit Han around the face with it, "You don't know, do you?"

"No, not really, no."

"It's okay, I don't know a lot of things either."

Han smiled and shrugged, "That's the basics anyway," he continued.

Zeke tried to sound off-hand band if it wasn't for the question he was asking he might have succeeded, "So…um… where are the guns?"

Han didn't react in the way Zeke expected, "You think Luke would want me to show you where the guns are?"

"I'm sure he would."

Han almost laughed; the kid had attitude. "C'mon then."

Zeke hopped off Han's reserved pilot seat and followed him out of the cockpit. Han brought him to the spot where the two ladders that led to each gun where and led him down to the belly gun.

"This is the-"

"Belly Gun, I know."

"For someone who has only been in space twice you sure know a lot."

"Well I can read," Zeke said. Han was surprised to hear this. Often street kids had no education at all. "And," Zeke continued, "I've been in loads of space ports. It's just space its self which is hard to get into!"

Han chuckled. This kid really wasn't so bad after all. Even if he had shot him.

After showing Zeke precisely how to use the gun he led him back to the cockpit.

"Well Zeke, that's the grand tour. Hope you enjoyed. If you'd like to leave a tip you're always welcome!" It was meant to be a joke but Zeke didn't appear to take it that way.

"I would Han, seriously! Except, I don't have any money. I spent it all on… well, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Han yawned. "Look, Zeke, I'm really tired, I got shot today and all- no offence! It's just that- do you mind if I…?"

"Nah, you go. Hey, is it alright if I have another look around the controls? I'll be really careful and I won't touch anything! I promise!"

If Zeke was honest with himself he really didn't expect Han to say yes, but he did.

"Yeah, okay. But I'm going to lock the controls. It's nothing personal!" he added, when he saw Zeke's face, "It's just in case you…or anyone else for that matter, accidentally hit something and we end up at Naboo instead of Nar Shaddaa."

"Yeah… Okay…" Even though Han had said it was nothing personal, Zeke took the words to heart. Still, he was so desperate to take another look at the controls that he would go for whatever he was offered.

After locking the controls, Han left Zeke on his own. He was confident in his decision and reasoned that should Zeke try anything that might harm the mission; the _Falcon_ would warn its master using some form of telepathy.

It hadn't been too long after Han had left for his forty-winks that Luke and Leia rounded the corner discussing more light-hearted topics than they had in days.

"Seriously Leia, the skirt looks fine!"

"Are you sure, I mean, are you sure it's-"

"_It's fine!_ It looks grand! Don't you trust me?"

Leia had walked on a little ahead of Luke, but rather suddenly she stopped dead still.

"Leia? What's wrong?" Luke asked facing her.

Leia didn't speak but pointed towards the open cockpit door. Luke followed her gaze and saw what had upset her.

Someone was at the controls, and it wasn't Han. In fact it wasn't an adult at all.

Luke was about to say that he was sure there was a perfect explanation for Zeke being at the helm of the _Falcon, _but he didn't get a chance. Leia was off. She sprinted as fast as she could in her skirt down the corridor. Luke could feel her rage building up inside her. He didn't know what she was going to do so he followed his instinct.

"ZEKE!"

Zeke spun round in the pilot seat. Luke saw the surprise on his face before the boy ducked just in time to miss Leia's hand hitting his face.

"Hey Leia!" he said in a cheerful voice before ducking again, away from her curled fist. By this point Luke had joined them. Much to his sister's surprise, he grabbed neither Zeke nor her. Instead he seized the back of Zeke's chair and span him away from the danger zone. Making sure he was covered at all angles from Leia he sent a wave of calming force power over his sister. It didn't do much, but now at least he could understand what she was yelling.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" she shrieked, "WHY ARE YOU IN HERE? WHERE'S HAN? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HIM? ARE YOU AND WEDGE IN THIS TOGETHER!"

She was clearly crazed.

"You're clearly crazed!" Zeke yelled over his shoulder to her. Luke was pinning him to the chair with one hand and holding Leia with the other. "And as for Han, he gave me permission!"

"Han would never let a _respectable_ minor anywhere near the cockpit let alone one like you!" Leia yelled back struggling with her brother's grip, "Where is my husband!"

Zeke was fighting as much as she was, causing hell for Luke who was stuck in the middle, "He…he…" Zeke gasped, "He went to bed… without you notably!"

As quick as lightning, before Zeke could register what was happening, Luke had let him go and given him a slap that was worthy of Leia on the back of the head. He had then grabbed Zeke again by the scruff of the neck before he had a chance to move. Even Zeke who had been on the receiving end of the punishment was impressed with the speed.

"Next time hit him harder Luke!" Leia screeched at the top of her voice. She fought Luke's human barrier harder than before as she hollered insults in every language she knew at him.

The increasing noise had attracted the other occupants of the ship, minus Han. Chewie had the longest legs and therefore greatest speed. He dived into the cockpit and hoisted Zeke off the seat and over his shoulder.

Meanwhile Lando and Wedge helped Luke restrain Leia who was fighting like a wampa.

"CHEWIE!" Lando yelled over the noise, "SWAP!"

Chewie sighed and set Zeke down while grumbling something that Zeke took as, _'Stay there!'_ he then went and picked up Leia as easily as if she were a rag doll. It was at that point that the rest seized Zeke.

"Don't mind me," yelled Wedge in Zeke's ear as he attempted to make himself heard, "I don't even know what I'm grabbing you for, but whatever you've done, don't do it again!"

"That's the thing!" Zeke hollered back, "I haven't done anything!"

He felt Wedge's grip slacken although no one else's did. If Zeke hadn't been in the situation he was, he might have felt touched by the gesture.

"She accused me of messing with the controls! I didn't do anything! Han let me in here and he locked the controls anyway!"

Lando noticed the conversation between Wedge and Zeke first and decided it was time for his eardrums to stop threatening to explode. "LEIA!" he yelled, "WILL YOU SHUT UP FOR JUST ONE MOMENT!"

To everyone's surprise, including Lando's, Leia did actually shut up. The room went completely silent.

"Thank you!" said Lando in relief. "Now, just exactly what's happening? Start at the beginning! Zeke?" he asked the boy to speak his account of the story. Leia made a noise of indigence at being put second to Zeke.

Luke silenced her with a glare then turned as Zeke cleared his throat. Whether his voice was hoarse from shouting or from the flu-like withdrawal symptoms he was experiencing, it was impossible to tell.

"I have permission to be here. Han let me!"

"Do you have anyone to confirm this Zeke?" asked Luke in his grave Jedi Voice.

"Sheesh!" Zeke moaned, "You sound like the Court of Justice in Coruscant!"

Before he could add that the smart thing to do would be just ask Han himself, Leia retorted scathingly, "Yeah, and you've been up in front of them a load of times, haven't you!"

"Just ask your husband," the youngest passenger of the _Falcon_ said in a bored drawl. "He was showing me around 'cause I've got an interest in flying!"

"But we don't know what you've done," Leia turned to the adults in the room, "He could have changed the flight paths of anything!" She said this as Chewie set her down gently.

Fed up with being treated as a criminal Zeke patronised her. "Obviously _someone _wasn't listening! Han locked the controls in case of an accident!"

"Accident? Oh yes. I'm sure that's why he did it!" It was none other than Leia that spoke once again. No one else could get a word in edgeways.

"Well, maybe that's the case!" Zeke was fighting to keep his cool, should he do anything rash, "But I'm not a liar!" He stressed the sentence.

Leia didn't speak for a moment; she seemed to be considering him. The rest of the room waited with bated breath.

"You're right," she said in a sorrowful voice, "You're not a liar."

Zeke looked at her intently, like an animal looking at a bear trap. He knew she wouldn't give in so easily.

"You're not a liar," Leia repeated, "You're a junkie, and that is all you'll ever be."

The silence that filled the room was electrifying. The line sank into Zeke like poison running through his veins. It was fascinating to watch. His eyes went from blue to green to yellow to orange to red to purple to black so quickly you could hardly tell the colours apart. It was like waiting for a volcano to erupt. One minute he was standing stock still in the middle of the room the next…

Zeke dived across the floor pulling himself free from Luke and Lando's grip with an enormous amount of strength. He dodged Wedge and Chewie running straight at Leia. No one could move quickly enough to stop him, not even Luke.

By the time everyone looked up Zeke had Leia by the throat. He had pinned her to a wall with the same strength he had conjured in order to escape the clutches of his captors. For a fleeting instant she looked terrified as she tried to find the composed face she had worn everyday during the rebellion. She found it at last when she realised that she could breathe. Zeke was holding her but not strangling her.

Zeke had a sneer playing around his mouth, but at the same time, he looked confused and venerable as well as evil. But there was more than this going on in the room.

Wedge was the first to notice Luke's hand creeping slowly towards his lightsaber. He reached out, touched Luke's arm and shook his head in a pleading way. The look on his face said, 'let me handle this.'

Normally Luke would have pulled rank on him, but in this situation he wasn't given the time. Wedge understood without words that he had been given approval for one chance and one chance only.

"So Zeke," Wedge said in a perfectly calm voice, "Tell me. What do you plan to do _after_ you've killed Leia?"

Zeke didn't look at him, but everyone knew he was listening.

"Go on and kill Han, I suppose," Wedge looked thoughtfully in to space, "the opportunities are endless once you've erased the captain of the ship…No! wait!" Wedge took a few steps forward so he was standing beside the boy, who was still not looking at him, "You should kill Luke!" Wedge continued as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "That's what I'd do!"

Wedge's tone suddenly changed, "You don't want to hurt her Zeke. Not with us around anyway," he put a hand on Zeke's shoulder, "If this is part of your escape plan, I can tell you your not going to get past stage one." Still Zeke didn't release Leia but he did turn to face Wedge.

"Even if you did want to kill all of us, we are some of the key members who brought down the empire, so I think we could handle you. Let her go and we can go and talk in another room. C'mon Zeke, that's a plan that'll work. Let her go."

Zeke stared at Wedge for a split second. His eyes were slowly going straight from black to blue. His grip on Leia slackened and then dropped altogether.

Leia ducked under wedge's arm and ran straight to Luke. She watched cautiously as Wedge led Zeke away out into the corridor and out of sight. Just as they disappeared, Han stuck his head round the door.

"Hey guys I just came to- did I miss something?"

The room breathed a sigh of relief.

"Boy!" Lando shook his head, "That guy is more explosive than nitro-glycerine!"

**A.N.**_ Well, that's gotta be our longest chappie yet! Wooooo! Go us!_

**Thorney: This chapter is dedicated to all the punk bands out there! Especially Good Charlotte and Green Day, who we have been listening to the whole time that we have been writing this fic. Not that you guys will ever know, but thanks for the inspiration. **

_Sweetdeath04: Plus, my dad needs a little mention (not that he'll care) because he gave us one of the lines that we used to get a bit of a rise out of Zeke._

**Thorney: Cheers for reading guys. We'll try and get another chapter done before I have to leave but I'm not promising anything.**

_So we'll see you guys soon!_

_**Sweetdeath04 and Thorney**_


	32. Why?

Disclaimer: We don't own anything except Zeke.

**Why?**

Wedge shut the door behind them.

"I wasn't going to hurt her!" Zeke quickly defended himself.

"Oh I know that!" said Wedge quickly. "But you see that guy in there with the lightsaber? He didn't!" Wedge sighed, "What made you do that Zeke?"

Zeke stared at Wedge as though the question was the most ludicrous thing he had ever heard. "Come on! You heard her! You've got ears! She provoked me!"

"Yeah, well that's not an excuse for pinning her to a wall!"

Zeke was obviously not in the mood for a lecture. "Look, Wedge, mate! I really don't wanna talk about this right now!"

"Listen Zeke," Wedge said exasperatedly. "I was trained to fly an X-Wing and command troops. _Not_ sort out the problems of today's youth! But I am trying to help you here!"

"Help me?" Zeke said disgustedly. "That's all you guys have been saying since I was brought on this _stupid_ ship! '_Oh we're going to help you Zeke!'_ That's all I've heard, but you know what? I don't feel helped!"

Wedge was short with him. "This is the longest amount of time you've went without drugs? Correct?"

Zeke nodded, knowing where this was going.

"And if you come back to Coruscant with us, what will you do? You will be able to earn some honest money if you stay off the drugs, and that's going to get a lot easier once the withdrawal symptoms have gone away."

Zeke looked at his feet.

"Plus, I don't think Han would appreciate you calling his ship stupid," Wedge concluded.

Zeke suppressed a laugh at this. "Han's gonna hate me for a lot more than just calling his ship stupid." The severity of what he had just done hit Zeke all at once. "Oh gods! They're all gonna hate me!"

Wedge chuckled, "No they're not! Trust me; believe it or not, we're used to this sort of thing."

Zeke looked up at his companion, "So you usually take in drug ridden teenagers for rehabilitation, do you?"

"Yeah, but we've never had one quite like you before."

Lando slipped through the door behind Wedge.

"There's an awful lot of frowning going on!" he said in a falsely cheerful voice.

Zeke put his head in his hands and sank down the wall to sit on the floor. He was the physical form of despair. Lando and Wedge knew that it was better to let him sulk and not to bother him.

"How's Leia?" Wedge asked Lando quietly.

"She's okay," Lando said, giving Zeke a sideways glance, "She's well enough to start a campaign against Zeke anyway. She's trying to convince Luke to throw him out as we speak. The only thing that's really damaged is her pride, I mean, pinned by a seventeen year old. Not something that usually happens to Leia."

"I don't see what they've got against each other," Wedge said, running a hand through his hair, "Mind you…Zeke probably started it."

"Did not," said a small voice from the floor.

Both Wedge and Lando ignored it.

"How we gonna fix this?" Lando asked extra quietly, more to himself than to Wedge.

"We can't," was the reply. Wedge turned around and looked at Zeke, "But we can make it easier for him,"

"What are you thinking?"

Wedge considered, "Hum…what about a 108?"

Lando paused for a minute then said, "Nah, to soft. What about a 273?"

Zeke had raised his head to listen, where they speaking in…code? Lando and Wedge?

"Not the best idea I've ever heard…not the worst, but not the best…" Wedge laughed suddenly, "The worse was Janson's idea of a 422 on Mon Mothma!"

Lando gasped, "You didn't!"

"We did!"

"Oh goodness…there are no words… the Rogue Squadron versus Mon Mothma!"

"You're telling me! Me, Janson, Hobbie and our Master Luke spend that night in a ditch full of water trying to hide from her personal guard!"

Lando erupted into laughter. Wedge turned to Zeke, "remind me to tell you about that sometime, you'll love it!

"Anyway," Lando choked, "What about a…..746?"

"Too much preparation needed."

Zeke wasn't sure, but he thought he might be catching on, "Hey! What about a 939?"

Both stared at him with extremely shocked looks on their faces. Then in perfect unison they exclaimed, "Are you mad!"

"Maybe if we wanted to kill ourselves and everyone else on board and if we had the resources….maybe, but not today!" explained Lando.

'_Okay_,_'_ thought Zeke, _'Maybe I'm not getting the idea_._'_

Wedge clapped his hands together in glee. "I've got it! I'm a genius! It's official! We should get certificates… signed by us! It's perfect! It's simple, irritating and it'll annoy Han senseless!"

Lando looked at him interestedly, "I'm liking it! What's the number?"

Wedge couldn't even portray his excitement in the grin he was wearing. "851!" He proclaimed loudly.

Lando's smile grew until it was plastered right over his face. "You are a genius!" Then, he pouted. "Now why couldn't I have thought of that?"

They turned back to Zeke, crouched down beside him and discussed the content of Plan 851 in hushed voices.

'_What do you reckon they're talking about in there?'_ Chewie asked Han thoughtfully. They were staring at the door avidly, not moving their eyes even to look at one another.

"Knowing those two," Han muttered, "they're probably trying to turn him into an evil minion, just like I predicted!"

Chewie let out a great guffaw. _'You always think the worst in people Cub!'_

Han continued to glare at the door. "I have a perfectly good reason to think the worst in everyone, especially those two! Do you remember some of the stuff they've pulled off on us?"

'_But now they've grown up! They're more mature than they were back then!'_

Han continued as though Chewie had said nothing, "And not just us! You should hear about some of the stuff they've pulled on Mon Mothma!"

He stopped talking when the door creaked open and the schemers emerged.

"Hey guys," he greeted them. "We should be arriving in Nar Shaddaa soon, just so you know."

Han got up to return to the cockpit when Wedge said in a confused voice, "Why?"

Han stared at him as if he had lost his mind, "To _rescue_ my _kids_!"

It was Lando's turn. "Why?"

Han hadn't caught on, but evidently Chewie had as he was doubled up behind Han's back, laughing silently.

"Come on Lando, don't make me go over the whole story again!"

It was back to Wedge, "Why?"

The Captain was starting to get frustrated. "Because it's _painful_!"

"Why?"

Han had caught on by now, but he decided to play along for now. "Because I gambled away my kids!"

"Why?"

"Because I was drunk!"

"Why?"

"Because I had drunk way to much alcohol."

"Why?"

"Because I was losing at Sabacc."

"Why?"

"Because I was playing badly!"

"Why?"

"Because I was drunk!"

"Why?"

"Because I had drunk way to much alcohol."

"Why?"

"Because I was losing at Sabacc."

"Why?"

"Because I was playing badly!"

"Why?"

"Okay! This isn't funny anymore!"

"Why?" both Wedge and Lando said in unison.

Han turned to Zeke, he had forgotten to be mad at him in the same way Leia often forgot when she was mad at him, "If you're in on this too," he said in a deadly voice, "I might just throw myself out the airlock!"

Zeke had been standing back, unsure whether he ought to participate. After all the trouble he caused he didn't want to anger his hosts any more than he already had. But then again, it had been Wedge and Lando who had recruited him and it might be funny to watch Han throw himself out into the vacuum of space.

"Why?" Zeke said simply. This accompanied with a small shrug was enough to provoke a growl from Han before he stalked off to the cockpit.

Both Wedge and Lando shot an 'I'm so proud of you!' look at Zeke before sneaking off after Han.

Zeke took Han's vacated seat. He was tired, he hadn't slept in days. On the journey to Commenor he had been kept awake by the other men, who had drunk all night long. And last night, apart from the prospect of not living to see another evening, he hadn't had a fix all day. He wasn't about to sleep in a hurry.

Zeke smiled grimly. One of the other pirates had sold him some tablets at about five in the morning, which he had taken straight away. They kept him awake for the rest of the night. The price for the pills was far too high, even if the drugs were as strong as the guy said they were. Thanks to that guy, Zeke was now broke.

'_Well,_' Zeke thought with extra malice, _'At least he died rich…'_ Zeke had watched as the supplier was cut down by Luke's lightsaber in a foolish attempt to attack.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't hear the footsteps coming towards him. Zeke was brought back to earth when he heard the talking.

"Honestly Luke, that kid should be thrown off the ship! He's a good-for-nothing little brat!"

Luke was walking up straight and looking so relaxed he could have been asleep- well, sleep walking with his eyes open, maybe. "Leia," he said in that oh-so-calm voice, "I know you're only saying these things because he pinned you. This really isn't like you! You usually give everyone the benefit of the doubt!" He grinned, "I bet if it had been _me_ who had pinned you, you'd be telling Han to have me thrown out the airlock!"

"You know I never liked him before!"

"But you never started campaigning to get him forcibly removed before!"

"Well, nobody wants him here!" she protested.

"Well…" Luke smirked at being able to oppose the 'diplomatic queen', "Wedge and Lando seem to want him here. They're getting on quite well. Maybe you should take a leaf out of their book."

"But they're as demented as he is-"

It was just about time for Zeke to make his presence known. He crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, making sure he looked confident even if he wasn't. He coughed loudly.

Luke and Leia spun around in surprise. Leia's mouth made the shape of an 'o' before Zeke started to talk.

"Demented's a bit harsh, don't you think? I thought 'possessed' was a better word. Though I did like your description of me as a brat, Leia! I found that quite original and _very_ accurate."

Leia gave him an angry glare and turned around to walk off, Zeke decided now was the time, otherwise he'd lose his nerve.

"I'm sorry!" he said loud enough for her to hear him. She stopped and turned slowly on the spot.

"You're what?" she asked quietly.

"Sorry," he said meeting her eyes. They looked at each other for a long moment.

Then…

"I heard that Mr Jarret!" Wedge came out of the cockpit, "You broke the pact!"

Zeke let out a yelp of surprise at being grabbed by Wedge and Lando from behind, "You guys really know how to ruin a moment don't you!"

"We've perfected our technique over several years!"

Before Zeke could explain exactly what type of moment they had interrupted, the two of them had lifted him clean off the ground and were spiriting him away from Leia, down the corridor. As they went they scolded him for 'betraying them in the worst way possible, by speaking any word that wasn't 'Why?''.

Leia watched them go with disbelief on her face, "Did what I just think happened, really happen?" she said, not sure if her question even made sense.

Luke smiled at her, grateful that Zeke might just have redeemed himself in Leia's eyes. "Yes Leia, I say it did happen. But that completely depends on what _you_ think happened."

His sister looked at him dumbstruck. "I _thought_ he apologised- but that can't be possible!" She continued breathlessly, "It's taken five years of marriage to Han to get him to act even slightly considerate and he'd still never think of apologising so, well, humbly!" She shook her head and was about to continue but Luke predicted her words.

"And yet Wedge and Lando have managed to turn Zeke into an almost-perfect gentleman in less than a day?"

Leia nodded mutely.

Luke wrapped an arm around her shoulders while laughing. "Never worry my dear little sister! We'll tame your husband yet!" And with that, he led the still clueless Princess down the corridors of the _Falcon_.

Meanwhile, Zeke had been carried bodily all around the _Falcon_ and then back to the cockpit as punishment for his 'betrayal'.

"Ouch!" he said indignantly, as Lando and Wedge dumped him on the floor, "I don't think I deserved that!"

Wedge grinned, "If you were in Rogue Squadron, we'd have done worse to you."

With that, both Wedge and Lando turned tail and left Zeke sitting on the floor.

Zeke was just in th middle of asking, "_What kind of ship is this?_" before Han spoke from his chair.

"They probably won't speak to you for the rest of the day now."

Zeke spun around on the floor, "They really do take it seriously, don't they?"

Han laughed, "Tell me about it. Mind you, they have a right. Back in the days of the rebellion, making other people look like complete idiots was the only enjoyment they could get. The rest of the time it was conferences, repairing damage to ships, attacking the Empire and the threat that the next time you go up, you, your mate or your commanding officer may not come down again. Can't say I blame them myself…except of course when they do something to me, then they've got no excuse."

Zeke snorted with laughter as he got to his feet, "I can't image, life around here ever being boring that's for sure!"

"Boring? Don't know the meaning of the word! Hey, Zeke, could you do me a favour? Go and get everyone and bring them back here, please."

Zeke smirked, "Why?"

Han Ignored him, "The reason's simple," he turned around in his chair so he was staring straight at Zeke, "We're coming up on Nar Shaddaa."

**A.N _Hello!_**_ We're back people and crazier than ever, thank goodness! We're getting close now…so close to achieving our goal!_

**Thorney: Half Term! WOOOOO! You can expect a couple of Chapters coming your way shortly!**

_Sweetdeath04: Is this chapter long enough for you? It reaches a total of 2471 words! That's got to be our record!_

_Please R&R 'cause you never know, we might get 150 reviews! Then we'll forever be in your debt!_

_**Sweetdeath04 & Thorney**_


	33. One by One

Disclaimer: Wedon'townitendofstory.

**One by One**

As Han pulled off a extremely difficult move in the _Falcon_ while landing, (just to show off his piloting skills), two shady figures watched him from a high balcony somewhere in the Nar Shaddaa skyline.

"Stop them," one said calmly to the other, "No matter what. I don't care if it takes you for ever, I don't care if you have to pick them off one by one. There shouldn't be more than six of them. Remember that they probably know about us by now. Just stop them. But make sure Solo comes to me," his tinny voice echoed in Dengar's ears.

"Right you are."

"Should you fail….don't. Of all of them, make sure you kill Skywalker."

"Okay, which Skywalker? And which Solo for that matter?" Dengar asked pathetically.

The mysterious Bobby Fett looked at him disgustedly, and then turned away and strode off. As he was leaving he hissed sarcastically, "The male one."

"Okay, here's the plan, fire and keep firing! Just don't hit the twins and don't get hit yourself!" Han said as he rapidly charged his blaster.

"What if we do hit the twins?"

"DON'T!"

Everyone was gathered in the lounge, getting ready for the attack. They knew there would be one. It wasn't likely that they could just stride in, pick up the twins, pay the kidnapper for babysitting and stride out again.

Zeke came through the door carrying a box of multiple blasters, "Here we go chaps!"

He handed a blaster to everyone even though they were already carrying about three others. Zeke then took one for himself and attached it to his belt.

Lando raised his eyebrows at Han, when Zeke wasn't looking. Wedge beat him to the point.

"Zeke," he said as tactfully as possible, "I think there are enough of us as it is… maybe it would be better if you stayed here-"

"What?" Zeke turned to him, "You're leaving me behind?"

Lando came in to help, "Zeke, you'd… you'd be a liability. I'm sorry but it's true. Look you're shaking as we speak 'cause of withdrawal. How do you expect to hold a blaster straight?"

Zeke tried to hold himself steady, but Lando spoke the truth, he was shaking like a leaf. Normally he would have protested, but he knew it was pointless. That didn't stop him being upset though. He wrenched the blaster from his belt and threw it at Lando's feet before storming out of the room.

Lando picked it up cautiously, "Lucky this thing didn't go off and shoot one of us in the foot!"

Wedge started after Zeke, "Maybe I should-" he gesture after him but was cut short by Luke.

"No," he stated bluntly. "We don't have time to worry about teenagers now. We have to worry about toddlers."

"You can talk to him when we get back," Leia said, noting Wedge's hesitant look.

Wedge nodded, stepping back into the circle that the group had formed.

"So," said Han sternly. "What's our action plan?"

Everyone replied in a bored drawl, "Fire and keep firing! Just don't hit the twins and don't get hit yourself."

The ramp of the _Falcon _lowered slowly. Wedge and Lando ducked as they left the safety of the ship's interior.

As he left Wedge muttered happily, "This is the most excitement I've had since I single-handedly blew up the Death Star, with nothing but a thermal detonator at my disposal!"

Lando looked at him, mock anger on his face "I believe I had something to do with that!"

Wedge pretended to think, "Hum….did you give me the detonator or something? I think your memory is getting worse in your old age! I distinctly remember blowing it up all by myself."

Lando ignored him.

"Han," Leia said uncertainly as she and her husband prepared to leave the ship, I have to tell you something."

Han turned to her, confused, "What?"

Leia started, "I want you to know that-"

**BANG!**

A wave of blaster fire exploded around them, from all directions.

"Wedge! Lando!" Han yelled, "How many?"

"TOO MANY!" Lando screeched over the noise.

Han dived out of the _Falcon, _Leia, Chewie and Luke at his side. He started pumping the trigger as fast as he could. Lando was right. There must have been at least forty of them.

"THEY CAME OUT OF NOWHERE!" Wedge wailed over the scream of blaster fire, "THERE WAS NO ONE HERE A SECOND AGO!"

"_RARRGG!"_ Chewie yelled which meant something a long the lines of 'how does a small time bounty hunter afford this many men!"

"HE DOESN'T," Han yelled back, "I'M NOT SO SURE THIS GUY IS THAT 'SMALL TIME!"

They were every where, fighting from behind the rubble of the dilapidated buildings and ruins that made up Nar Shaddaa. They were perfect in their fighting style, like a trained army. These guys were not the same idiots they fought with last time.

Han had just decided that their rescue mission was over before it had even began when-

**_BANG! BANGBANGBANG!_**

Everyone instinctively ducked as bolts flew over their heads, flattening the soldiers who were attacking. The belly gun of the _Falcon_ was ablaze!

There was only one person in that ship. Zeke.

Han had never been happier that he had taken the time out of his busy schedule of eating, sleeping and sitting in the cockpit trying to look busy, to show a rowdy teen the belly gun of the ship!

It wasn't long until their attackers were falling like dominoes. Soon, there was nothing left to shoot at them. That kid may not have been able to fire a blaster at the present time, but he could sure fire the belly gun.

"There!" Leia yelled. It turned out there _was_ something to shoot at. A single, solitary man. And in his arms he carried to small, rounded figures that were unmistakably, the twins.

"Jaina! Jacen!" Leia screamed, and started sprinting after the man, who had disappeared into the nearest warehouse.

"Leia! Wait!" Han called out after her.

As the rest of them stepped out into the open, Han turned around to look at the occupant of the belly gun. Zeke raised his hand and saluted the party that were headed towards an old warehouse. Han imitated the gesture with the utmost sincerity.

Lando, who had chased after Leia, called out to Han. "Han, these dudes aren't 'dudes'."

Han's eyes widened, "They're women!"

"No!" Lando said, as though the idea was absolutely ridiculous, "They're droids!"

Han sighed, "No wonder they were so good," he muttered as he stepped over the dissembled parts.

Luke spoke up, "But the guy who took the twins _defiantly_ wasn't a droid…" They left it like that.

Everyone was reunited inside and Leia pointed down one of the many corridors. It appeared that the warehouse was attached to another huge building. "He took them that way." Her face was grim as she reached for her sabre, which, up to now, hadn't used.

Han nodded and took the lead silently starting down the hall. It was deadly silent, dark and wet. Water was dripping somewhere and the noise was resounding around them. The group crawled forward, blasters and sabres constantly ready. The corridor was long and winding and it seemed to take forever to get to the end. In fact they didn't even see it coming. Han almost walked into the door, but his senses told him that to stop.

"There's a door here," he whispered. Despite talking quietly the echo made sure everyone heard him.

As he said it, everyone focused their weapons on the door ready for it to be opened. Luke and Leia shuffled to the front of the group to reflect any blaster bolts.

Han pushed the door open violently. It opened into a room not much bigger than the _Falcon's_ lounge. Apart from a couple of chairs and a three legged table, the room was empty.

Almost disappointed, Han moved across the room to another door, "They must have gone this way."

In single file, the company immerged from the corridor, Luke, Leia, Chewie, Lando and lastly Wedge.

The rest moved on, but out of habit Wedge turned around to close the door behind them…

The other's became aware of what was happening when the heard a muffled yell from their friend.

Leia spun on the spot, just in time to almost get knocked off her feet as a very heavily armoured someone flashed past her. She had time to tell, by the way he was running, the man was carrying something heavy.

The other's had already retraced their steps back to the room. There they found Wedge, flattened against the door. Behind it they could hear banging and yelling.

"Wedge! You okay?" Lando said sounding worried.

"Go!" Wedge yelled, " I can't hold them forever. There's only two left, I can take it! GO!"

"Wedge this is not the time to be noble!"

Wedge swore, using words he must have learnt from Zeke, "Just go would you!"

No one wanted to leave him, but they had too. As soon as they were a safe distance away, Wedge moved away the door. He knew this was gonna hurt.

"Wedge can look after himself…they must have been behind the door…" Han was muttering more to himself than anyone else, "he'll be fine, he'll be great…"

"Han," Leia said, "SHHHH!"

The group was moving at a much quicker speed now. The corridor they were running down was the polar opposite to the one they had been in before. It was well lit and impossibly straight. They could see the man that they were chasing and much to Leia's pain, they could hear the twins cries.

Way ahead of them, their quarry disappeared around a corner. Leia suddenly realised how quick Lando could go when he wanted to. He had soon over taken everyone and was covering a lot of ground in a

short time. He had soon disappeared around the corner.

When everyone else rounded the corner, out of breath and panting, the miniscule amount of oxygen left inside them vanished.

A man was standing in front of them. But this man was taller and broader than Han and Lando put together. He also carried a knife.

The knife was also huge. Bigger than an average vibroblade, it looked as though it would have been put to good use in the hands of a butcher.

"Psst!" Lando hissed out of the corner of his mouth. His hands were raised above his head, and obviously, the enemy was considering whether or not to believe his surrender. "Go that way!" His smallest finger pointed directly behind them. Up an adjoining corridor another man was racing away from them with the twins in his arms.

Leia felt a whirlpool of guilt well up inside her. She wanted to run after her children so much, but it would be totally against any morals she ever stood for to leave Lando here, facing this monster of a man with a knife.

"Lando, we can't leave you on your own too!" Han was obviously thinking along the same lines as Leia.

Lando rolled his eyes, "So you're willing to let Wedge go off on his own but I have to be kept under close surveillance?"

"That was different!" Leia hissed, "That guy's huge!"

"Can _you_ knife fight?"

"I could give it a pretty good shot!" Leia retaliated.

Lando's arms fell to his sides. The enormous man lunged for him. Lando ducked swiftly and grabbed the vibroblade from its position on his boot. Then he spun around, "Run for it!"

Turning back to his opponent, who was wondering how Lando had dodged his attack and ended up armed in the process, Lando said with as much charisma as he could mange, "I guess you're leading the way then!"

He had just enough to catch a glimpse at his friends retreating backs before he was pulled into combat.

"Is it just me or does this place have a hell of a lot of corridors!" Han panted as the remaining members of the gang jogged down another of the long halls after the twins.

Then disaster struck. They rounded yet another corner, the only possible corner, to find a dead end. There was a wall, and nothing else. Just a wall. No door. No window. Just a wall.

"What?" Leia cried in despair, "No!"

Han walked right up to the wall and tapped it, listening.

"It's sound," he said, "There's no way through."

"That's impossible," Luke said disbelievingly, "He can't just have vanished!"

Chewie groaned, _"I smell two people, someone was waiting for him here…"_

Much to the Wookiee's annoyance, no one seemed to be listening to him. All three humans were examining the wall in greater detail.

"There's nothing here!"

"There has to be!"

"There isn't!"

"What are we gonna do now?"

"Find them!"

"Leia there's no way through!"

"There has to be!"

"There isn't! Maybe we should go back."

"We can't!"

"Maybe we missed a door or something…"

"We saw him turn this corner!"

"Chewie," Han said, turning around. He was about to ask Chewbacca for his opinion in the matter but on turning around to address him, he found he was talking to thin air.

"Chewie?" Han asked dumbstruck, "He's gone!"

Luke and Leia span on the spot with a simultaneous, "Huh?"

"GONE!" Han yelled, hysterically, his voice echoing down the corridor.

The three of them ran to the corner to take a look to see if he had gone back. Chewie was no where to be seen.

"Leia we have to go back, that's the only way they could have gone, tell her Luke! Luke? No way! Luke! This isn't funny!"

Luke had disappeared. There was no trace of him ever being there.

"This corner must be haunted or something!" Han said, half joking.

Leia nodded, checking every nook and cranny for her brother.

"Where are they?" Han muttered tapping on the wall again. He turned to Leia to get her opinion.

He was facing thin air.

"Leia?" Han called out as he turned on the spot to look all around him. "Luke, Chewie? Anyone?"

A loud warbling came from above him. _'Hurry up cub! This way!'_

Chewie laughed loudly as he pulled Han up through the attic door. Han, however, didn't find it funny.

"Why didn't you just tell me there was a trap door! You just wasted a load of time!"

Chewie however didn't seem bothered, neither apparently did Luke.

The group started to crawl along the narrow shaft. Han continued to fume.

"We've probably lost him now! He'll be long gone!"

"I don't think so," Luke said, "they're leading us in the same way they have done throughout the whole mission. They want us to follow them and they're doing a very bad job of covering it up. Mind you, that suggests they don't really care if we know or not. That's more than a bit worrying."

"Luke," Han said, "I can see you've thought about this too much."

He heard Luke laugh ahead of him.

Eventually, they dropped out of the shaft into what looked like it had once been an entrance hall to something much bigger. It was in ruins but they could tell it had once been very grand.

However, they were no longer alone. Suddenly a group of about ten men charged at them. They were screaming, waving their weapons and looked pretty impressive. Before Luke and Leia had even had a chance to draw their sabres, Chewie was off.

He ran at the men, waving his long arms and roaring at the top of his voice. Like a flock of birds the attackers slowed, turned and ran in the opposite direction with Chewbacca in hot pursuit. He chased them out of the hall and out of sight.

Han, Luke and Leia did have much time to get over what had happened. They had to move on without Chewie, they knew that.

As they walked towards the enormous doors in front of them Han broke the ice that had fallen, "Who taught Chewie how to spalter?"

"Wow!" Han, Leia and Luke all said together. The room behind the doors was enormous. It must have been a ballroom hall of some kind at one point in time. The walls were covered in mirrors of all shapes and sizes and you could see you reflection in the floor. However the mirrors were cracked and broken and the floor was dulled by dust and age. No one had danced here in some time.

"So you finally got here! Took you long enough!"

The gang looked down the steps onto the dance floor to see Dengar standing right in the centre of the hall. He looked surprisingly calm. But it was not Dengar that drew their attention. Leia gasped when she saw it and Luke felt fear grow in both his sister and Han.

Dengar was holding both twins under one arm, they were too scared to call out, and extremely long and heavy chain in his other hand. On the end of that chain was a nexu.

The fierce cat like creature roared with hunger. It did look very thin. It's flat head was swaying from side to side and there was a pool of drool on the ground at it's feet. Luke remembered Yoda telling him a story of how his mother fought a nexu that was supposed to be executing her on Geonosis before she and Anakin got married. Luke was slightly impressed that Dengar had tamed one, though he doubted that if he asked it to sit it would.

Luke had a pretty good idea why Dengar had one here.

"We thought we'd get something special for you Skywalker!" Dengar sneered to Luke, "After all, droids and cheep pirate scum don't faze you do they? Well I must dash, enjoy!"

With that, Dengar dropped the chain. The nexu sprang forward as if it had been given an electric shock.

"RUN!" Luke yelled before drawing his lightsabre, "The twins need you both, run!"

Leia didn't want to leave her brother alone with the large, carnivorous beast, but Luke gave her a push towards the side door that Dengar had fled through, with the Force. Both her and Han ran as fast as their weary legs would carry them towards their children.

Han heard the beast that was fighting Luke let out a hungry roar, and had he not been conserving any energy he had left for the fight that he knew he was going to face, he would have yelled back to his brother-in-law. Anything- even something as stupid as to be careful not to break a mirror unless he wanted seven years of bad luck.

Dengar's feet skidded along the ground as he turned yet another corridor in this maze. If they ever got out of this, Leia thought, she would get lost trying to find a way out of the labyrinth.

Eventually, Dengar came to a halt and as he tried to open an obviously locked door, Han and Leia made up all the ground they had lost. Dengar was backed into a corner, and he knew it.

As they approached, Han drew his blaster and Leia lit her lightsabre. Together, in the dilapidated corridor, they looked incredibly intimidating, even for the famous bounty hunter.

"Give us back our children," Leia said, the purple glow of the sabre illuminating her face.

Dengar stuttered, but no words would come out.

"Dengar," Han stated in recognition. "I gave you those burns and cuts," he gestured to the bandages that were permanently wrapped around Dengar's head. "I can give you much worse if you would like?"

Dengar gulped, remembering the speeder accident which Solo had caused. He also knew a threat when he heard one.

The lock on the door opposite clicked open, unnoticed by everyone.

"Okay! Okay!" Dengar cried for mercy, "I don't want them any more! They've been driving me insane!" He was about to throw the junior Solo's towards their parents when a mysterious figure, shrouded by shadows, opened the previously locked door.

Dengar's terrified face broke into a smirk of the evilest kind. Before Han and Leia could do anything Dengar had thrown the twins through the door. Leia jumped forward her sabre now at the bounty hunter's throat.

"Go get them babe!" she yelled at Han.

Her husband was surprised but he darted through the door. Then it hit him. He was the last one left.

Han was in what looked light a fancy hotel room. There was a four poster bed, missing two legs, in the middle of the room. Jason and Jaina were lying on it, terrified. Standing beyond them, looking out of a window at the ruined city, was the man responsible for all of this.

He had his back to Han, so Han couldn't see his face, but he knew this was the man he was looking for.

"You Bobby?" Han asked it his Boldest voice. The man didn't reply. He did however reach over to the small table standing beside him. On that table there was a singular object. A battered helmet. One that was all to familiar to Han.

The man lifted it and placed it over his head.

"Some people call me that," he said in a slightly metallic voice, "But…" he turned around. Han couldn't believe it. He was looking at a dead man.

The man let out a small and evil laugh, "I think, Solo, you know what I prefer to be called."


	34. The Not So Stranger

Disclaimer: We don't own it. Got it?

**The Not So Stranger**

"YOU!" cried Han. This wasn't possible! It just wasn't! It was as simple as that, not possible! "You're supposed to be simmering in Sarlacc stomach acid right now!"

Indeed it was Boba Fett who was staring at him from inside the battered helmet, "Well the evidence would suggest otherwise," Han's enemy sneered.

"How did you escape?" Han had temporarily forgotten about the twins. The shock of seeing a man who he had though dead for a number of years had driven them straight from his mind.

Tilting his helmet to one side, Fett paused before answering, "You try being digested over a thousand year period! It's not pleasant, that's for sure. I know that you, Solo would also have done anything to get out… mind you, I succeeded where you would have failed."

At this, Fett tapped his helmet and Han suddenly understood. Boba Fett was a walking talking arsenal. Han doubted that even Sarlacc stomach acid could break through Fett's Mandalorian Armour.

Fett knew Han had figured that part of the story out so he continued. "After that, it was just a case of shooting my way out. Of course when I finally reached the surface I had no skin left… but what you gonna do?"

Now that Fett had finished his tale, Han's attention came suddenly back to the twins, who were still lying on the bed. He made a dive at them, but Fett raised his Tenloss DXR-b disrupter rifle and fixed it on Han. Han froze as Fett approached the twins and gathered them under his arm. They were too scared even to cry out to their father.

"You know," said Fett nonchalantly, "I never really wanted these two. I just wanted you in a position that you wouldn't be able to get out of. But when the opportunity arose, well, I couldn't resist using your own children against you." At that point the rifle's business end changed its aim from Han to his children. "So," Fett continued, "now that I have you, I can dispose of them."

Wary of the rifle, Han didn't advance straight away. Instead he said in as menacing a voice as he could muster, "If you do anything to hurt my kids Fett, I swear that for as long as I live I will hunt you down!"

Tinny laughter came from under the battered helmet. "You've been doing that all your life Solo. It's hardly a _new_ threat. And, if I may say so, I believe _I_ have the upper hand."

Overcome with rage, Han drew his gun and charged at the bounty hunter. But he stopped short at the sound of an almighty bang and smoke coming from the place where Fett had stood with the two Solo Juniors. As he jumped back waiting for the smoke that had instantly filled the room to clear, he was briefly reminded of the magician and illusionist Xaverri- one of Han's old flames- who had pulled off many a trick using smoke screens.

However, unlike Xaverri's smoke screens, this one was not designed for magic, so it cleared quickly. Han was then able to see where Fett had gone. He had ducked out a side door, out onto what appeared to be a balcony. Han followed quickly. It was only when he got outside onto the narrow balcony that he realised exactly how high up they were. The street was far below them. The few pedestrians that Han could see were the size of tiny bugs.

Fett was standing on the edge furthest away from the door. He was grasping one twin in each hand, holding them off the ground.

"Well Solo, I guess this is the end. This is my ultimate revenge for you throwing me in to that hell pit!" Fett yelled triumphantly.

"I didn't throw you in!" Han protested, "It was an accident! I hit your jet pack with a stick, remember I was blind at the time," he added as an after thought before continuing, "you went flying into he side of Jabba's barge, rolled down a sand hill and in to the Sarlacc, so it was your own stupid fault! You should know not to get in the way of a blind man wielding a stick!"

Han was sure Fett almost laughed, "I'll remember that for next time," then he was back to his evil self, "Not that they'll be a next time, for you anyway! You worthless fool. You think your independent, but you've been relying on other's your whole life! You came here to save your children, but you can't even save yourself let alone them. Let's face it Solo, you can't do anything right…you couldn't even kill me properly! And if you can't save your kids, tell me, what good are you here?"

"You'd be surprised what he's good for!"

Han suppressed the urge to turn around, as he knew Fett would shoot him in the back. But he recognised the voice.

"He's certainly good a chasing people around his ship when they've sabotaged an oil pipe while trying to help with repairs," said Wedge offhandedly. "Boba Fett, I presume? I'm General Wedge Antilles of the New Republic, Leader of Rogue Squadron and founder of Wraith Squadron."

Han was sure that under the mask Fett's mouth was hanging wide open at the exuberance of Wedge. "You're who?" The bounty hunter replied.

"Wedge Antilles!" Then, in a voice that resembled a childish whine he continued, "How come everyone's heard of you but no-one's heard of me?" He paused, then seemed to have a brain wave.

"And, Mr Fett, in answer to you're question, Han's a hell of a pilot! Some of the acid must have got through to your brain while you were in the Pit of Carkoon, if you don't remember that! It's a pretty obvious factor, in my opinion!"

Fett recovered from meeting Wedge in a shorter time than most. He quickly returned the quip with one of his own. "Ah yes, Solo's beloved _Millennium Falcon_. That pile of junk belongs in a museum- along with it's owner!"

"Ouch! That's got to hurt," Wedge whispered coming up to stand beside Han. Han hadn't noticed before as he hadn't turned around, but Wedge's blaster was out and pointed straight at Fett. Wedge was sporting some rather unsightly afflictions- such as a bloody nose and a rapidly blackening eye.

"Oh! What's going on here then?" Lando's voice came from the door. Then he spied Fett. And Fett spied him.

"AAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!"

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Both men let out a yell.

"You're not dead?" Lando gasped in surprise.

Fett seemed equally surprised that Lando was alive. "No-one's killed you yet?"

What followed was a stunned silence that was finally broken by Wedge. "Here, Lando! It's complement Han Solo day, did you know?"

Either Lando still hadn't recovered from the shock of seeing Boba Fett alive and well, or it was renewed from hearing this. "Complement Han Solo day? When did that happen?" Then he glanced at the man they were supposed to be complementing. "Ah well, looks like someone took pity on him after all…" He trailed off in thought.

"Sithspit, I forgot how _insane_ you lot were!" Boba muttered in disbelief.

Lando acted as though he had never heard him, "Well, I don't think it would be possible to find another man who would forgive me for betraying him to Vader and Fett here."

Han risked a glance across at Lando and said sincerely, "Well, you did help rescue me. That counted for something."

Lando laughed and directed his attention back to Fett as he said, "If it was me in your position back then, I'd have probably pushed you off the barge myself and left you to converse with _him_," he jabbed a thumb at Fett, who was still holding the twins, "about who would be the first to get digested by the Sarlacc, and stuff like that!"

He lifted his hand to his face and wiped away some of the residue blood from a long cut that stretched from just under his right eye to his chin. As he brought down his arm again, something snapped, and from inside his sleeve a small yet powerful wrist blaster was pulled up into his hand. It was pointed at Boba Fett.

Fett was unperturbed by this and his voice was filtered through the helmet again as he said, "His forgiveness is a weakness that would be his downfall if I wasn't going to kill him here and now."

A roar came from the door as Chewie's feet pounded on the floor as he approached and stood behind Han.

"What did he say? _What did he say?_" came Wedge's frantic voice.

Chewie put a hand/paw on Han's shoulder, _'Cub saved me, and basically everyone else here at least once. He's the bravest person I know."_

"I have no idea what that fuzz ball just said but I bet it was really corny," Fett said sarcastically.

"Fett!"

Instinct kept everyone facing Fett, even as Luke drew up beside them. He looked a state. He had several large, serious looking cuts on his face which were dripping blood. The parts of his face not covered in blood were covered in sweat. He had obviously worked really hard to beat the nexu.

When Luke drew level with his friends, he stopped and threw something at Fett's feet. Fett was surprised, but he still didn't drop the twins. Everyone realised what Luke had thrown at once. It was the nexu's tail.

"Nexus depend on their tails for balance," Luke said calmly, "So if you chop off the tail, they become clumsy and after that they become easy to slay. Perhaps you should have thought of that before you set one on a man with a weapon that cuts through anything."

Han noticed that Luke didn't have his lightsabre out. But he was giving Fett a look that Han had very rarely seen him use before.

"You know Skywalker, out of all of Solo's companions I thought you would have figure out what was going on, but I needn't have worried. It seems that I overestimated your Jedi powers. That's why I sent men to have you killed, which of course didn't work. In fact," his tone changed and they could tell he was sneering, "I've heard you've even taken one of them under your wing. That's the problem with you 'good guys'. You're all far to sentimental!"

"Han would help anyone in need," Luke said, still in the same level voice, "No matter who they are."

"Cute, but I'm still waiting to be impressed."

"Well let's break it down into a form which you can understand!" came the angriest voice of all. Leia had arrived.

Fett was surprised at her outburst but he seemed ready to listen to what she had to say. The others braced themselves for a tantrum.

"Fett, my husband is a far greater man than you- that's assuming that you really are a man and not a whimpering, snivelling fool like your friend back there," she referred to Dengar. "_He's_ currently cowering in the corner of a locked room, fearing for his life!" She took a breath before continuing on her rant. "And while the two of you were the same when I met you- both of you caring only about yourselves and money, Han rose above that! And while he saved the galaxy from the dictatorship of the Empire- what did you do?" She gave him less than a second to come up with an answer. "You- _you_ hid away from the rest of the universe!" She pulled out her lightsabre and ignited it with a snap and a hiss before concluding her downgrading of the Bounty Hunter.

"Han is a greater, stronger, braver person than you could ever hope to be! He is a better pilot than you, he could out-draw you in a blaster battle any day, and I love him more than anyone would ever love you!"

"Drop the glow-stick, girlie!" Fett said loudly. It actually sounded as if some of what Leia said had got through to him, "All of you shut up! I've heard enough!" he held the twins out over the enormous drop, "Say goodbye to your children Solo. It's a pity you couldn't save them. Remember, that in a twisted way…this is your fault!"

With that he let go. The twins plummeted out of sight. Their screams because lost in those of their parents. Boba Fett just managed to dive out of the way as everyone rushed to the edge. The twins were falling fast. Falling, falling, falling, slowing, slowing, stopping, coming back?

"Luke?" Han said worriedly as the twins rushed back up the side of the building towards them.

"It's not me!" Luke sounded as worried as Han and ever so slightly annoyed that he hadn't thought of using his Force Powers as Han thought he was, to save his niece and nephew.

"It's me," said a struggling voice. They all turned around to see Leia, who had fallen to her knees and her lightsabre deactivated beside her on the ground, sweat pouring down her forehead, concentrating with all her might, "HELP ME LUKE!" she yelled, "I can't keep this up for long!"

Luke came to his sister's aid and soon the twins came flying over the edge of the balcony. Jason soared quickly into Lando's arms. The force of his landing nearly knocked Lando backwards, whereas Jaina was caught lightly by Chewie.

In just a few seconds, the tables had turned on Boba Fett. A minute ago, he had been in total control with both twins and their parents at his mercy. Now, just as the dealer at the casino, he found himself faced with two blasters, a wookiee crossbow and one green and one purple lightsabre. He had no choice.

"This isn't over Solo!" he yelled.

"I never expect it will be," Han said, sounding almost as calm as Luke.

With that Fett turned and jumped off the balcony. He fell a few metres, then his jet pack burst into life. He soared up past the balcony again at a phenomenal speed, and in the blink of an eye, he had disappeared around the side of the building.

As Han watched him go he couldn't decide if he was happy that Fett was back or not. It would definitely give him something to chase. However, Wedge broke his pensive mood.

He came up beside Han as Fett disappeared and said, " A jet pack? I gotta get me one of those!"

**A.N _This is the second time we have wrote this chapter! The first draft got deleted when SD04's computer got wiped. But it's all ok now. We didn't have an A.N at the end of last chapter for suspense, so we'll have to make up for it now. Just so you know, this is the corny climax. You'll be pleased to here that the level of corniness will decrease from now on._**

_SD04: Yep, I seriously can't believe we've finished this chapter… again. But anywho, we have a few people we need to dedicate this to. First and foremost, the Astronomical Society at our school, which I am a member of! We did this project- the Orion Project which some of the lines in this are nicked from._

**Thorney: Particularly, we'd like to thank L.M because he was 'the High Priest' in the play. He inspired Lando and Fett's yelling match. Every time they did it was L.M's turn to go on stage in the play, he changed something about his act, so every time it became more ridiculous and more funny. One time L.M suddenly yelled "ARRRGGHHH!" which scared everyone in the hall half to death (Including SD04 who was on stage next to him) Well after all he was supposed to be a savage! Sweetdeath04 yelled back in the end. Also, A.B for being A.B. we are REALLY gonna miss you when you leave!**

_SD04: The other person we need to thank for that particular drama is JA- crazy, insane, mad and fun. He's also a Star Wars addict. He was the one who wrote the original script for that drama though how much of it was left in the end could be debated about! Then, lastly our dear friend S. (We don't know his last name!) He was dedicated to the entire project and sat for three days with me (the Nutty Prof,) and my assistant TG in a paper box, dying of fake smoke inhalation. He's now left our school and we're really gonna miss him! Also a Star Wars maniac! _

**Thorney: I hope we didn't bore you with all our dedications, sorry! However the fics not over just yet (but we're close) so we have to go! But we leave with this parting message:**

_**BOTH: ITZAMNA! OI!**_

_**Thorney and Sweetdeath04**_


	35. The Name of the Game

Disclaimer: we don't own it get used to it.

**The Name Of The Game**

The party soon found their way back to the Falcon. They exited the building just in time to see Slave 1 disappear out of sight. However, Dengar's ship, _The Mist Hunter_ was still docked on the derelict landing platform.

"Hey," Wedge said, sounding surprised, "Why is that still here?"

Han grinned, "It's full of all the stuff they took from our house," he said, "It was never important so there was no profit in taking it with them."

"I can't see Dengar giving up his ship easily," Lando sounded suspicious.

"He valued his life more. Lando buddy, could you fly it home for me?" Han asked. Lando nodded and started to walk towards the ship.

"Make sure you take care of your wounds!" Leia yelled after him, as both the twins waved goodbye, "Oh!" she added, "Do your self a favour and don't wake up C-3PO until we get home!"

Luke, Han, Leia, Wedge, Chewie and the twins arrived back in the main lounge to find Zeke playing holo-chess with himself.

The boy looked up as they came in. He scanned their faces then asked in a shaking voice, "Where's Lando?"

"Don't worry," Wedge said stepping forward, clapping the boy on the back, "He's fine. He's flying the other ship home."

There was a roar of engines from outside as Dengar's ship lifted off the ground.

"We'd better get going too," Han said thoughtfully. He hadn't been so tired in a long time. He could tell Chewie was also whacked. Besides, he wanted to spend some time with his children, now they had them back. He turned to Wedge rather dubiously, "Would you get us home, Wedge? All you have to do is put a lock on…get us out of this atmosphere…and into hyperspace…" Han didn't sound at all sure of himself.

Wedge however was grinning fit to burst, "Sure Han old buddy," He said, trying hard not to laugh, "I can do anything you ask of me with this ship, just put your faith in me!"

Han didn't have a chance to say anything else before Wedge had bounced out of the room. Han sighed and turned around stiffly to Zeke, "Keep an eye on him for me would you, you're co-pilot."

Zeke's eyes widened in pleasure, "Aye, Aye Cap' in!" he said with a salute before dashing down the hall.

"Hey!" Han yelled after him. Zeke stopped and turned. Han continued, "Thank you."

Zeke smiled and ran into the cockpit.

"You're not wise you know," Luke said, as the all took they're seats.

Han took a very deep breath, "I know."

At that moment the _Falcon_ lurched forward violently. It rose up so quickly on it's repulsors that Han rose off his seat and almost hit his head on the roof. Chewie let out a howl of pain.

"Sorry!" They heard Wedge yell from the cockpit, "This is a bit bigger than what I'm used to!"

Han sat down, cradling his daughter in his arms, "I'm not wise."

"No," she said, "But I am! Or at least wiser!"

Han looked at her intently, "Really?" he asked, "How so?"

"I've learned many lessons; don't ask Threepio to sing, don't make the 'bandagey' man angry, and I learned some new words!"

"I could have done with learning those lessons a long time ago!" he told her.

"The words… I never learned them at school Daddy, which means they're big people words!"

Han was only half listening, "Really?"

"One of the words I learnt was fu-" Han clapped a hand over her mouth, suddenly aware of what she was about to say.

"Jaina!" he said is as calm a voice as he can manage, "You must never, ever say that again! Your mother will think I taught you!"

His daughter looked up, eyes filled with childish wonder, "Ok Daddy," she said in the most innocent voice she could manage, "I'll be good!"

On the other side of the room, Jacen was telling his mother about his adventures, "We learned loads of new words! Like the word, blo-"

Leia stopped him, "Don't ever say that word again, especially not in front of Daddy or Uncle Luke," she didn't sound angry, more concerned, "They'll think I taught you!"

It was at that moment that loud whoops of joy came from the cockpit and the _Falcon_ did a cartwheel in midair. Luke, who was the only one still standing, fell hard on his rear end and let out a string of curses which was followed by his howl, "Wedge, what do you think you're doing!"

Wedge's voice travelled up the corridor, "This is the only time I'm ever gonna get to fly this thing! I'm taking her for a joy ride!"

Luke shook his head, only to find the occupants of the room staring at him in disbelief.

"Daddy," said Jaina, sounding shocked, "he said the _words_!"

Jacen finished off his sisters thought, "He's a bad boy!"

Han couldn't help but laugh at his children. He was so glad to have them back!

Both the _Falcon_ and the _Mist Hunter_ landed on the docking bay outside the Solo's house. They were greeted by a lady holding a small child that was squalling in her arms.

"Winter!" Leia cried out to her long time companion. The child she was holding was Han and Leia's other son, Anakin. They were welcomed into the party as though they had been there the whole time during their adventures.

As Winter explained that she had found a message from Leia and coming straight to their home, only to find it empty, Lando approached Han.

"Han, buddy, I was watching you fly in behind me, and, well, that was some sloppy work." Lando said as loudly as necessary to make Wedge hear him. Wedge glared at him but Lando only smiled back. "Na, just joking Wedge; that was good flying!" He paused before saying, "Apart from when you made the _Falcon_ spin like a bally dancer!"

Wedge pointed over at Zeke, "That was his idea actually!"

The rest of the day was spent transferring everything from the _Mist Hunter_ into its rightful place in the Solo household. However, they did decided to keep Threepio shut off a little longer, just to give them a bit of peace.

They did wake up R2-D2 who made several happy bleeping noises, which they assumed meant that he was pleased to see them.

By the time that they were done, it was nightfall. The nightlife in Courscant was in full swing and it didn't take long for the boys to hunt down an appropriate bar where they could do a little partying before going their separate ways.

"Ugh, I have to go back to Janson, back to _work,_ and _responsibility, _and _commitment, _and… other stuff," Wedge groaned, looking at the bottom of his glass through the amber liquid that filled it.

Everyone laughed at him. "Come on Wedge, we had fun!" said Lando lightly, "Apart from the whole getting shot at and almost getting killed, we had fun!"

"It's not over yet," Han said wearily. "We still have one more thing to deal with, if you get my meaning."

Lando and Wedge looked at each other, and then said in simulation, "Zeke."

They lapsed into silence before it was broke by Han. "There's an orphanage- not too far from here. He's still young enough to get in. He could go there for a couple of years then get out when he's old enough and do whatever he wants."

Wedge shook his head. "I think I've got a better idea…"

The boys arrived back to meet Leia and Winter at the door. "The twins and Anakin are asleep so you better be quiet!" The latter glared menacingly.

They all moved into the sitting room. All apart from Wedge who gathered his stuff to go.

Han glanced around the corner at him. "You not gonna stay for a game?" he asked.

Wedge looked around at him. "Na, I gotta go. They might have noticed that I've gone and put Janson in charge. That just wouldn't do!"

"Well…" Han said awkwardly, "Thanks, Wedge, for everything. I'm ashamed to say it, but we couldn't have done it without you."

Wedge grinned, "You probably could!"

Zeke rounded the corner, slipping past Han. "You ready to go?" Wedge asked him.

Zeke nodded enthusiastically, but behind him everyone else's mouths dropped open. "What?" Leia asked.

"Zeke here thought he'd try out for the Rogues," Wedge said grinning. "I reckon he could be pretty good at it- with the right teacher!" He looked very smug.

"Yeah, if you wanna learn how to crash," Lando muttered from the couch. Wedge ignored him and gazed at Zeke as he approached Leia.

Wedge and Zeke had moved around the room saying goodbye to everyone. When Zeke reached Leia, he glanced over at Lando as if for confirmation. He then lifted Leia's hand and kissed it gently.

"I taught him well! Didn't I teach him well?" cried out Lando in a choked up voice.

Zeke returned to the door, to talk to Han. Wedge was speaking with Luke, "Remember Skywalker, if you ever want to come back for a while… once a Rogue always a Rogue…"

Luke smiled, "Thanks Wedge." The men shook hands.

With that Wedge and Zeke left the house and started to walk off down the street.

"Who knows when we'll get another adventure like that one," Wedge remarked.

Zeke smiled, "Maybe we'll get one sooner than you think."

It the middle of a room a table was set up. On its top sat a pack of sabacc cards ready for use. Han dished them out and readied the sabacc pot.

The other players, Luke, Lando, Chewie, Winter and Leia settled themselves in their chairs.

Lando spoke up, "Well that was something wasn't it?"

Han thought about the adventure they had just experienced. So much to think about…

He sighed deeply, looked around at his friends and studied his cards, "Right everyone, the name of the game is Sabacc…"

**_A.N Well that's it. You've had your lot. We are really upset that this is finally over! But we are happy at the same time. Thank you to all who have ever reviewed this story and please keep reviewing._**

_**By the way, Han probably won that sabacc game in the end and no doubt Lando's response would have been, "Why couldn't you have done that same time last week!"…**_

_**This has been the most successful story that we have ever written, it's also the longest by far. It's taken us almost two years. We hope you've enjoyed this. We did.**_

_**Sweetdeath04 & Thorney**_


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